Knights boss says firm ‘never missed a heartbeat’ as it entered lockdown

David Beech, the chief executive of bullish listed law firm Knights has told TheBusinessDesk.com that his firm “never missed a heartbeat” throughout the Covid-19 lockdown.

The claim comes as Knights a revenue increase to the end of April of 41% to £74.3m on the back of a string of acquisitions, including Nottingham-based Fraser Brown, Leeds-based Shulmans and Manchester-based Croftons. Underlying profit before tax also rose sharply by 45% to £13.6m.

Beech said he is “really pleased with the backbone of the business” after revealing the results to the London Stock Exchange on Wednesday morning (22 July).

He added: “As we went into lockdown we never missed a heartbeat, we managed our costs early, integrated all our acquisitions successfully and we’re now seeing a stabilisation of the market.”

Beech says the firm is now on a major recruitment drive across all the regions it operates in – as well as looking for further acquisition opportunities in the East of the country and the south-west.

Knights bought Nottingham-based Fraser Brown in February in an £8.3m deal.

The move will see former Fraser Brown staff move away from their long-held headquarters on Friar Lane in Nottingham city centre to 9,000 sq ft of space at Embankment House on Riverside Business Park.

Embankment House – Knights’ new Nottingham office

The new offices will be able to house up to 110 staff. The firm expects to make the move in October.

Beech said: “It was a real struggle to find suitable Grade A office accommodation in Nottingham. We saw Embankment House, but at first thought we’d missed out to another tenant. However, the deal fell through and we were able to seal the deal.”

He added: “We’re now looking to recruit in Nottingham and add people to our new office.”

By early afternoon on Wednesday, Knights’ share price had risen over 4% to 442.4p, valuing the firm at £363m.