Blake Morgan advises the South’s leading recruitment companies
In the first half of 2024, Blake Morgan has advised two multi-award-winning recruitment companies headquartered on the South Coast in Hampshire, helping them on their path to achieve their strategic goals.
The award winning law firm has recently advised leading Solent 250 recruiter Carrington West on its management buyout as well as leading health and life sciences recruiter Compass Recruitment Solutions (“CRS”) on its significant investment from Cow Corner in addition to CRS’s follow on acquisition of UK executive search boutique Carter Schwartz.
Multi-award-winning Carrington West, founded in 2011, boasts a turnover in excess of £75 million. In 2021 it gained Investors in People platinum status, was named IIP Platinum Employer of the Year in 2022, and in 2023 was in the top 10 medium sized businesses in The Sunday Times Best Places to Work list. In the first quarter of 2024, Carrington West completed a management buy-out, advised by Blake Morgan to ‘facilitate the evolution of the business’.
Managing Director James Fernandes comments:
“We have always operated on the basis that we put our people first, and our people are committed to continued learning. This means we have a management team in place who are ready to take the business to the next level. This is an exciting time for Carrington West, and we are focused, agile and ready to be the best possible recruitment partner we can be.”
Mat Wilson, Corporate Partner, who led the MBO advisory team for Carrington West commented:
“It has been a pleasure working with James, Gavin and the management team at Carrington West, helping them navigate their management buy-out, which enables the management team to build on its successes and go from strength to strength.”
Following on from the successful MBO of Carrington West, Blake Morgan’s Corporate team advised long standing client CRS on two transactions completing in successive months.
CRS is a highly respected and multi award winning recruitment solutions business focused on companies and investors across the healthcare, health & social care and life sciences markets in the UK and increasingly internationally. Founded in 2010 by Sam Leighton-Smith, Mike Jeffreys and Chris Russell and head-quartered in Portsmouth, with offices in Manchester, London and Raleigh in USA, Compass employs 150 people. Compass provides a full integrated service offering from retained executive search through to the recruitment of skilled managers and head office appointments, operating through its well-known brands of Compass Associates, Carrot Recruitment, Compass Corporate Services and its newly rebranded executive search business Compass Carter Osborne (formerly known as Compass Executives).
Group Managing Director at CRS, Sam Leighton-Smith commented:
“We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Cow Corner as a shareholder and strategic partner to Compass. Our new partnership with Cow Corner brings wider support and exciting opportunities for the group that we couldn’t facilitate at pace before. Working with them on the deal itself was a real pleasure and their unique style has enabled us to develop a great professional and friendly relationship to build on across our next chapter. Additionally, working again with our trusted lawyers Blake Morgan, Mat Wilson and the team have been exceptional, and we look forward to continuing to work with them on future projects.”
Adam Carter, one of the Senior Partners at Compass Carter Osborne said:
“The strategic alignment of Carter Schwartz and Compass Executives brings together the two leading executive search houses within independent health and care. With a proposition greater than the sum of the parts, this solution offers our respective clients access to unparalleled market knowledge with a consultative potency unrivalled across the independent health, care, and life science niches – knowledge based advisory at its best”.
Mat Wilson, who led the Blake Morgan team on the CRS transactions commented:
“Following advising the management team on Cow Corner’s significant investment in CRS, we are delighted to have supported them on their first transaction – merging the Compass Executives business with Carter Schwartz to form Compass Carter Osborne. We wish Sam, Adam and Luke all the very best in continuing to build their impressive executive search business as well as of course the wider CRS business across the health, care and life sciences sectors.
“Being a full-service law firm means we can seamlessly advise our clients on the full range of areas that they need supporting on whilst having the experience and expertise to take the lead on strategic solutions to complex matters.”
Blake Morgan has the expertise to advise boards, in-house counsel and business owners from a wide variety of sectors on all aspects of their legal and business needs. Find out more about their corporate services here.
Share:
If you need advice on a range of corporate legal issues
Speak to a member of our Corporate team
Arrange a callHOW CAN WE HELP?
To get in touch with one of our legal experts please fill in your details.
