Acquisition costs Fairpoint Group additional £3m

LANCASHIRE professional services firm Fairpoint Group has paid out an extra £3m following its takeover of Leeds law firm Simpson Millar after it achieved the targets set for its first year’s performance following acquisition.

The original price paid by the Adlington company was £9m, of which £7m was in cash and the remainder in shares, which themselves have increased in value by around £700,000 since the purchase completed in June 2014.

It also set earn-out targets that were worth £3m in each of the two years following the deal. In the first year, Leeds-based Simpson Millar has “exceeded the challenging financial hurdles” resulting in an earn-out of £1.5m in cash and £1.5m in shares – although the shares were issued at a pre-agreed price of 141p, and are currently worth £1.9m with Fairpoint’s shares currently trading just below 180p.

Simpson Millar last month completed the purchase of legal business Colemans-CTTS which will take its annual revenues to more than £40m, accounting for more than 60% of Fairpoint’s group revenue.