Bigwood and Curry merger creates £2.5bn property portfolio

TWO chartered surveying firms in Birmingham have merged to form one of region’s largest independent agencies.

Bigwood, which has a 160-year-old heritage in the city, has joined forces with Curry & Partners, which was established in 1994.

The new company will be called CPBigwood, earning fees of £8m, and none of the firms’ existing offices will close as a result of the merger.

The new combined payroll will have 125 staff, made up of an almost 50/50 split from both firms.

Curry & Partners is responsible for managing more than £1bn worth of property assets throughout the UK and the new combined company will have a management portfolio worth more than £2.5bn.

Susheel Gupta, corporate partner at Higgs & Sons, provided the legal and structuring advice.

Bigwood managing MD Rory Daly said it was Curry’s strength in property management which was one of the principal driving forces behind the deal.

“We have been talking to Curry & Partners’ founders Paul and Nigel Curry for some time now as we recognised there were significant synergies and a greater market share to be achieved through a merger of two such compatible businesses,” he said.

Nigel Curry, who will be joint managing director of CPBigwood with Mr Daly, said: “We recognised that Bigwood had been extremely successful in raising its profile in the past five years and we felt that we had somewhat reached a glass ceiling both size-wise and marketing-wise.

“The merger will enable the combined group to invest heavily in people and technology to service the increasing demands of clients and compete with national firms on big ticket instructions.”