Legal news: TLT ‘here to stay’; Eversheds education role

TLT, the law firm which has made dramatic head way in the Manchester market in the last two years, has pledged further growth and investment in the city.

Launching its new office space at 3 Hardman Square, Spinningfields on Thursday night, managing partner David Pester and Manchester office chief Graeme Orchison, said the firm was delighted with progress.

The team has grown from single figures to 80 in two years and could rise to 150, Orchison said.

Orchison said: “The office is a fantastic space and a statement of intent in Manchester.

“As a firm I think TLT has come a long way in quite a short space of time, nowhere is that more apparent than in relation to the Manchester office.

“We opened in 2013, literally with one man, not even a dog, 18 months later we are 80 full time employees and we have very ambitious growth plans in terms of where we want to get there.

“When we deliver on those plans we will be a full service commercial law firm.”

Managing partner David Pester added:”We recognise how important it is to be close to markets locally. People buy people and Graeme and the other people who have joined the firm are all about what we wanted to do. They recognised the opportunity in the market.

“We have seen a huge amount of loyalty from the clients who have followed people to our firm, and if competitors think we are not here to stay, this is a pretty clear statement and we are definetly going to continue to grow the business.”

::

Eversheds has advised a consortium on its mandate to deliver 12 new schools in the North West.

The consortium of Morgan Sindall Investments and Equitix will carry out the builds through the Government’s new Private Finance 2 (PF2) delivery model.

It will provide five secondary and seven primary schools, with design and construction services by Morgan Sindall and 25-year facilities management through Integral UK.

It is the third batch of the new Priority School Building Programme, with capital value of £110m.

The scheme has centralised more responsibilities than its predecessor Private Finance Initiative (PFI), with an aggregator model providing funding across all batches through a broad range of short- and long-term debt finance.

Alongside this, the Education Funding Agency is centrally managing the entire programme to deliver a streamlined procurement process.

The Eversheds team was led by partner Sophie Robinson, who said: “It was a pleasure to have worked with Morgan Sindall and Equitix to deliver a project which will bring significant benefits to the education sector in the North West of England. It is a fresh approach to private finance in the UK, which we look forward to applying both domestically and overseas.”