Law firm Bermans hits record turnover and unveils new partners

Fergal O'Cleirigh

North West law firm Bermans has set a new record for turnover levels, its latest figures for the year to June 30, 2022, reveal.

Revenues improved for the eighth consecutive year from £7.85m to £8.1m.

The property team has had its best year and has recently recruited Phillipa Baty and Jessica Murphy, the latter to assist Melanie Morris in the firm`s burgeoning property finance team.

New client wins include Redsun Developments, University of Central Lancashire, Domis Construction and the charity The Big Help.

A large increase in employment tribunal claims over the past 12 months has seen turnover in the employment team exceed £750,000 for the first time. The team recruited Tahsin Khan in November 2021, to assist with this influx of work and expects significant further growth over the forthcoming financial year.

Known Origin’s sale of its non-fungible token marketplace to eBay was the largest deal for Jon Davage and the corporate team. The team’s expertise in the thriving technology sector was further enhanced by acting on the investment in Peppercorn AI for EHE Capital.

Recent arrival, Barney Leaf, acted on the sale of the national car rental company Easirent to Leasys SPA, the wholly-owned company of the Italian FCA Bank.
This year has seen the team expand with the arrival of solicitor Nathan Hughes, paralegal Rebecca Tsang with Emma Norman-Jones joining the Liverpool corporate team in September as a newly qualified solicitor following the completion of her training contract.

Stephen Green has completed his first year as head of commercial and the team has had a solid year working with a number of existing clients, especially in the technology and medical diagnostic sectors.

The litigation team achieved success in the High Court for Equisafety, an equestrian high viz sportswear firm, following an IP infringement case and held a number of sessions for clients on effectively managing debt recovery during and post-pandemic.

Bermans has continued to develop its sports practice area, headed up by former Everton footballer Gareth Farrelly who has been involved in a number of high profile cases with the Premier League Judicial Panel, the Football Association and the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Alex Chapman and David Gledhill in the firm’s specialist asset-based lending team have had another bumper year, again being ranked #1 lawyers in Business Money Receivables poll and acted for several leasing companies in four multimillion-pound revolving credit back-to-back facilities.

The Insolvency team, led by Phil Farrelly, is starting to see a significant increase in instructions as the support provided to companies throughout the coronavirus pandemic have lifted. The early part of the year saw a large number of contentious insolvency assignments there reflecting office holders’ focus on investigating the possible abuse of the ‘Bounce Back Loan’ scheme by directors.

During the second half of the year the team, including partner Martin March and senior associate, James Whittaker, advised on the corporate restructuring of certain subsidiaries of Travelex, in administration, acted for FRP as administrators in relation to the pre-pack sale of the business and assets of Utility Exchange Online and for global engineering consultancy PD&MS in its acquisition of Optimus, an Aberdeen-based engineering consultancy specialising in engineering and design for the oil and gas industries from its administrators.

Fergal O’Cleirigh, Bermans’ senior partner and head of property, said: “We are very pleased with the end of year outcome. Transactional activity in property, corporate and asset finance has remained buoyant and we anticipate that will remain the case and all our departments will be busy in the year ahead.

“On the back of our continued success and to recognise their contribution to it, Robin Hastings and Rob Maddocks from our corporate and employment teams in Manchester have been promoted to partner status.”

Close