The Consolidators

I started writing the first book on “Consolidators” in conjunction with USA and Australian associates to capture what I considered to be the first and unique development of accountancy firms in the UK.

It seems evident that there are significant similarities between key firms in the USA UK and Australia in this respect that no-one in the UK had picked up on. Whilst its hardly fair to say that had the directors of Tenon read it they would have avoided most of the pitfalls (because a) it wasn’t then written and b) because you can only see so much from outside an organisation – never the complete picture) - it is absolutely fair to suggest that any future consolidator hopeful would be idiotic not to do some research and find out what went wrong – however sadly the City are not noted for applied intelligence.

I personally believe that the Consolidator format will become dominant within a few years simply because the “deregulation” has allowed some firms to grow much faster than others and as a result “market-led” practices with dominant drivers at the helm are not simply going to retire and pass the benefit of their efforts (which may have come at a cost of a home life littered with divorces and estranged children not to mention working very hard for a number of years) to less dedicated staff. Well why should they?

A consolidator format with public listing and issued share capital is a way out which allows them to crystalise their holding as well as maintain a link with the beast that they have created. THERE IS NO OTHER FORMAT THAT WILL DO THIS HALF AS WELL! – this first book is now out of date and needs a rewrite which I hope to do in 2007

Other Books – Sellers, Buyers, Mergers, Valuations

So this led me to turning my experience of the accountancy practice M & A area into a written record. In doing so I was able to draw on my experiences as MBA lecture at the Open University where I was tutor on Business Strategy for many years.

I was able to interpret the practices that I saw in the light of the models and frequently use them to act as a mechanism for getting points over.

I early concluded that there were many tricky points in a typical M & A deal and started by writing papers for these areas but I then realised that there were factors beyond my scope and had to draw in third parties on matters like Tax & TUPE & death in practice.

Having prepared papers for each of these key areas I realised that they impacted buyers and sellers in different ways and so eventually they were put into books as you see them now. Sadly I have never been able to get a “standard” legal contract that’s partly because no practice sale is very standard and because solicitors are themselves such a hopeless bunch. They simply cannot understand size as a concept! Knowledgeable Solicitors who know about Commercial M & A attempt to stick even the simplest deal into a 29 page contract suitable for the sale of a Unilever subsidiary whilst those with no experience of M & A find the concept of the claw back almost impossible to understand and if they do then to commit it to writing! So I have come as near as I can to covering ALL possible points – the result is it looks cumbersome.

The 21 Chapters are sorted into Books to suit our view of the needs of Buyer, Sellers, Mergers or Valuers. As this causes us less handling we offer them at 60% of the full cost.(though you can buy a separate chapter if you wish but you will have to pay the full price) Note that some chapters are common to two or more books. Or you may create your own book of not more than any twelve chapters again at full list price - call to discuss. We sell to end users only and won’t sell to other brokers who are too lazy to write their own material. If you find any material in the books which are out of date or you think misleading then let us know & will refund 50% of the cost. The whole cost of a sellers book is refundable if you ask us to act as you selling agent.

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