13th November 2020
Professional services provider Leonard Curtis in Bristol is marking an important milestone this month, celebrating 10 years of advisory to SMEs across the city and the wider region.
The firm specialises in corporate restructuring and insolvency, personal debt advice, equity and debt finance raising for SMEs, cashflow optimisation, property solutions and legal services.
Established in Bristol by the highly rated Colin Prescott in 2010, the firm is now led by Director and IP Andy Beckingham, working closely with colleagues Robin Goddard, of in-house brokerage Reach Commercial Finance, and Robert Banbury, who looks after the company’s key referrer accountancy community and business development.
Bristol is the lead office for Leonard Curtis in the South West, South Central and South Wales region. The local team comprises nine experienced professionals based in the office on Queen Square in Bristol city centre, with a further seven based in Southampton, Cardiff and Plymouth, together including five licensed IPs – one of the biggest IP teams in the region.
The firm also has plans to look at other towns and cities in the future like Exeter, Taunton and Gloucester to grow the regional footprint.
It is a strategy reflected across the UK by Leonard Curtis who now employ 240 people in 19 regional offices, including an offshore operation in Guernsey.
Andy Beckingham commented: “Colin Prescott was extremely well regarded in Bristol and laid the foundations for our success, which we have built on, establishing strength in depth in IP terms and becoming the regional hub for Leonard Curtis.”
Group Director Dan Booth commented: “We believe that the best relationships are made locally with people you know and trust – whether that’s a professional advisory and financial network – or end customer SMEs. We all share a passion for the region and want to help every business succeed in it. It also allows us to specialise in industries associated with an area and excel in all aspects of advisory and support for that sector, including, when required turnaround and restructure.”
Widely reported as one of the best places to run a company in Britain, Bristol has the highest survival rate for businesses anywhere in the country (ONS Dec 2019) and is home to a thriving creative and technology sector. The wider region is also strong in hospitality, residential care and agriculture.
A number of household names, including animation studio Aardman Animations, Hargreaves Lansdown and some major aerospace industrials, have bases in Bristol, Channel 4 has opened a hub in the city and a new fast train link from Bristol to London Paddington has dramatically improved links between the South West, London and the rest of the country.
Andy again: “It is a great place to do business. We are keeping an eye on the fast-growing high tech software engineering sector in particular where we see needs for funding, expansion and restructuring services. And we would like to do more in the renewable energy space. One of our landmark projects of the last 10 years was with a global wind-power and solar panel supplier. There are opportunities to do far more.”
Of Covid-19 Andy was typically plain-speaking. “We are very mindful that this disease has badly impacted people and their businesses and, while it may have dampened our celebrations a little, we are confident we have the skills to help drive recovery.”
Bryn Ible, Regional MD for Advantedge Commercial Finance, who works closely with Andy and the team said that the firm had earned the respect of the professional services community in Bristol.
“Leonard Curtis manages to combine a down to earth, straight-talking approach with exceptional technical skills and brings its expertise to bear – sometimes at moments of extreme crisis for business owners – with great empathy, wholly focused on a positive result for all. It is a pleasure to work with them and we wish them well for the next 10 years.”
In its 10th anniversary year Leonard Curtis Bristol will be supporting the Group’s charitable scheme – called The Leonard Curtis Foundation – to provide a focal point and framework to increase the firm’s ‘giving’, with an emphasis on employees in Bristol and surrounds and the causes they care about.