Legal services firm agrees £8m credit facility to fund growth plans
North West legal services business, Fletchers Group, has announced a new £8m credit facility with its bank to invest in its organic growth strategy over the next three years.
The firm, based in Southport and with a Manchester office, specialises in medical negligence, serious and motorbike injuries.
It was acquired by Sun Capital last October.
Alex Lynch, CFO, said the new facility, negotiated with RBS and completed at the end of August, replaced the existing £4m debt and included an option for a further £2m.
She said: “We will be increasing our investment in marketing, continuing to grow our medical negligence brand, PCL , and looking to grow market share in our two new areas of PI, cycle and ELPL.
“Our investment plans will also see us processing cases more efficiently and improving our case selection, and while we have already made significant progress in bringing technology into the business to work alongside our people, we will be investing further in AI and data analytics capability to enable us to do this.”
Paul Gaynor, relationship director for RBS said: “We ran a comprehensive due diligence on the group, including external WIP due diligence, and we’re hugely impressed by the strength of the business, its ambitious but achievable plans for growth, and the strength in depth of the management team.
“We have been bankers to the group for over 25 years and it’s great to be able to support such a progressive business – it is in prime position to benefit from the opportunities arising in a rapidly changing market, post-pandemic.”
Alex said Fletchers Group requires capital to underpin its strategy of growing market share and building on their recent success of attracting high value claims: “In a high growth environment, our business consumes cash from day one, and higher value cases, which take longer to settle, tend to strain capital.
“As we continue to build market share in this space, this greater capital facility gives us the necessary financial protection to cement our place in this part of the market.”
She said the group expects to give a trading update in the fourth quarter of 2022, where it will update the market in more detail on its growth plans.
