Major hurdles prevented single Halliwells deal says Hill Dicks chief

HILL Dickinson’s original goal was to take over the entire Halliwells business, but the deal fell at a critical hurdle, managing partner Peter Jackson has revealed.

This centred on Halliwells’ insurance department – which Hill Dicks saw as one of the  most attractive assets within the troubled firm.

Mr Jackson said: “Originally we were looking at all of it (Halliwells), but it became apparent, through no one’s fault, that this was going to be impossible. The situation was client-driven.”

He said issues had arisen over the transfer of Halliwells’ insurance business to a firm not on the insurers’ legal panels.

“Clients wanted to make their own choices, and if we were not on their panel they would not guarantee us the work.”

With this in mind, Liverpool-based Hill Dickinson began assessing  which parts of Halliwells could add most value at the lowest risk.

“Once it became clear that it was going to fragment, we took the view that it would not be right for us to pursue the rest of the Manchester assets.”

Mr Jackson said Halliwells’ Manchester office had posed too great a risk to be viable, in terms of “infrastructure, people and property.”

“The Manchester premises are not heavily populated and it could have been a risk for us – it’s very expensive. In all we felt Manchester was not a risk worth taking for what we perceived we would achieve out of it.

“We’re really pleased with the Liverpool and Sheffield assets. Sheffield came up late in the day and is a really interesting strategic move for us.

“We already had some clients in South and West Yorkshire which we served from our Manchester and Liverpool offices, and now we’ll be able to do it from a local base. We really liked the team and the culture there.

“Their private healthcare practice dovetails very nicely with our public health practice.”

He paid tribute to Halliwells’ managing partner Jonathan Brown – who has now joined Hill Dickinson; “We’ve been in intense negotiations for three months, and we’d had exploratory chats before.

“The negotiations were very open and honest, but there was a chemistry there, which if missing means deals won’t happen. Jonathan led the negotiations very well.”