People: Law firm announces new managing partner; KPMG hire for advisory firm; and more

Higgs & Sons has appointed Nick Taylor as the firm’s next managing partner.

He will take over from Paul Hunt with effect from 1 December 2019, the start of Higgs’ new financial year.

As managing partner he will be responsible for the operations and performance of the business.

He said: “Higgs is an agile but stable law firm where balance, long-term relationships, partnership and community matters. I’m looking forward to directing the strategy of the firm towards continuing profitable growth by ensuring we remain focussed at all times on our people and our clients.”

Taylor joined Higgs’ business services team which has seen considerable year on year growth during the decade in which he has headed up the department.

His role as head of the business services team has seen him responsible for the firm’s corporate, commercial, tax & business wealth preservation, insolvency, succession planning and company secretarial teams, a role that will be taken over by John Heaton from December.

Alongside his managing partner role, Taylor will remain an active part of the corporate team.

Paul Hunt’s new role will see him head up the firm’s business succession planning team.

He said: “Owner-managed businesses are the bedrock of Higgs and we believe that for the good of the region we need to encourage early and effective planning for the future ownership and management of our clients. I would like to think I am practising what I preach, and will be leaving our managing partner role in very capable hands.”

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Duff & Phelps has boosted its restructuring advisory practice in Birmingham with the appointment of Vijay Merchant as director.

Merchant joins Duff & Phelps from KPMG, where he spent over 13 years in the deal advisory practice as associate director, and also completed a 12-month secondment to the business support team of a high street clearing bank.

Merchant has expertise in advising company directors, lenders and other stakeholders when a business is facing financial distress and cash flow challenges.

Matt Ingram, managing director, Duff & Phelps, said: “Vijay has extensive experience advising businesses whether they seek to stabilise short-term cash flow, review their options, look for additional or alternate finance, or equity fund raising. Vijay also has a proven track record in managing stakeholder relations through pre-lend and viability reviews on behalf of lenders and investors and independent business reviews for the clearing banks. I am delighted that Vijay has chosen to join the Duff & Phelps team here in Birmingham as we take our stressed advisory offering from strength to strength.”

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Specialist professional services PR firm Suited Comms is going from strength to strength as it marks its third anniversary.

Having established a solid roster of clients across the legal, financial and business services arena, the Birmingham-based boutique agency is gearing up for further growth, with PR professional Sara Burgess joining the team as a senior consultant.

Burgess brings almost two decades of expertise in the professional services sector to the team, having led PR programmes for Eversheds Sutherland, REED Recruitment, Bridgepoint Capital and Interlaw during her tenure at some of the Midlands’ largest communications agencies, as well as working on major blue chip accounts such as npower and Siemens.

The move sees her reunite with former colleagues and joint directors of Suited Comms, James West and Joanna Barnsley.

West said: “Sara is a hugely talented and experienced PR consultant and a real asset to our growing team. What’s more, having known and worked with Sara for many years, we’ve really hit the ground running as a senior team of three and are looking forward to putting our collective expertise together to expand our growing client base.”