Since its inception in 2010, national advisory boutique FRP has continued to grow out from its core services of restructuring and insolvency.
Now offering five service lines - restructuring, corporate finance, debt advisory, pensions advisory and forensic services - restructuring partner Martyn Rickels launched the firm’s corporate finance offering in Manchester in 2015.
“We have 18 offices around the country and all 18 of those have restructuring, seven have corporate finance, and then the other three service lines are a little bit more focused on London and Manchester,” he explains.
“It was a six-month process to get all the approvals so it launched officially towards the back end of 2015 in Manchester and it’s grown from there.”
In October 2018, the firm’s Manchester office moved into a larger, 4,000 sq ft space at Abbey House on Booth Street.
“We’ve grown as a team, we wanted additional capacity for additional growth and we just outgrew the old office and it was time for something a little bit better,” he says.
“I’ve been here seven years and we’ve grown the team from five people to more than 30 now and the ethos of what we do is entrepreneurial so we will look at growing and building the team out further.”
Rickels says it’s “really important” for the firm to invest in Manchester and the regions.
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He explains: “We are focused on the regional, mid-market sector.
“One of our differentiators is where our offices are and the relationships that we’ve got in those local areas.
“A lot of companies like having local advising, especially when you’re in the managed arena which is where we are.
“We’ve got three bigger city centre offices - Manchester, Brentwood and London - and those bigger offices have very strong relationships with all of the lenders and the private equity community.
“Some of the more regional offices, for example in Preston, are really well connected with local advisors, local lawyers, and accountants, and they generate a lot of work out of being in the location.”
From a restructuring perspective, one of the Manchester office’s recent successes is its work with caravan manufacturer Luna Caravans, based in Preston.
“That’s had a number of issues for various reasons and our role on that was initially to try and find an equity player to come and put additional cash into it.
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“However, due to economic and political issues, which have impacted on consumer confidence, just meant the numbers went backwards and we ended up selling to a trade buyer outside the industry.”
When it comes to challenges faced by businesses, Rickels says trends aren’t so much to do with sectors as they are to do with circumstances facing individual companies.
“We’ve seen multiple sectors over the last six months, so there’s not an underlying trend in sectors per se, it’s just situational.
“It may be a lost contract, it may be a bad debt, there’s a whole host of issues that can impact on it.
“To manage a business in a downturn, that’s where the really good managers are.”
However, he said: “There are sectors that are generally being hit because of changes in sector dynamic, and I guess a good example is the printing sector which across the board has got some challenges.”
Speaking pre-election on how economic and political uncertainty has impacted businesses, he said, from a corporate finance perspective, “there continues to be a volume of opportunity”.
“We are continuing to see owners and managers of businesses looking at transactions and I think drivers behind that are the volume of people looking to try and sell, partly driven by the uncertainty of the broader political landscape.
“There are managers who weathered the last recession and credit crunch back in 2008, 2009 and 2010, who have come through that and are now in a position to ask ‘have I got it in me to go again?’”
The firm has also seen business with strong balance sheets looking to be opportunistic, he says.
“There’s still an awful lot of liquidity out in the market, so the private equity funds have got cash, you’ve got alternate lenders popping up all over the place, filling in the gaps where the banks used to be because the banks are a bit more cautious.”
Rickels says the general consensus is that in 2020, from a restructuring perspective, “the expectation is that it is going to continue to be busier”.
“There is definitely an increased prevalence of stress,” he adds.