Law firm completes multi-million pound acquisition

Global law firm DWF has now completed the acquisition of Mindcrest Inc, a legal and managed services business.

It follows an announcement on 29 January 2020 that Leeds and Manchester-based DWF had reached a definitive agreement to acquire Mindcrest, subject to the satisfaction of certain pre-conditions.

Now the pre-conditions have been met, DWF has acquired full ownership of Mindcrest for an initial consideration of US$10.7m (£8.2m) of which US$2.2m (£1.7m) was satisfied in cash and US$8.5m (£6.5m) was satisfied by the issue of 5,028,726 new ordinary shares in DWF.

Mindcrest will in future operate as DWF Mindcrest, offering managed services and integrated legal solutions to clients globally.

An additional cash consideration of US$7.6m (£5.9m) is deferred and phased over a period of six months, meaning a total of US$18.3m (£14.1m) is payable to the Mindcrest sellers.

Application has been made for the Consideration Shares to be admitted to listing on the premium segment of the Official List and to trading on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange at 8am on 4 March 2020.

When the acquisition announcement was first released earlier this year, DWF said Mindcrest would bring with it about 360 new employees, most of whom will be based in Pune, India, with additional offices in Chicago, New York and London.

Commenting in late January, Andrew Leaitherland, Group CEO at DWF, said: “Mindcrest is an excellent fit for our business, allowing us to rapidly expand our Managed Services offering in both existing and new areas, accelerating growth in this key offering that remains central to our strategy.

“Managed Services continues to be a real differentiator for DWF, and Mindcrest will provide the resources to better support our clients globally by meeting their requirements where and when they need them.”