Birmingham firm quadruples footprint to meet SME demand

From left, Shaun Knight (Board Director at Baldwins), Ian Gould (Regional Managing Partner at Baldwins), John Baldwin (Board Director at Baldwins) and Richard Tonks (Restructuring & Insolvency Director at Baldwins)

One of the UK’s fastest-growing business advisory groups is quadrupling its footprint in Birmingham and opening a dedicated added-value service centre to meet increasing demand from SME firms.

Since Baldwins opened an insolvency and restructuring office in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter in June 2017, the firm has generated more than £1 million in fee income.

Baldwins has now signed a ten-year lease on 4,700 square foot premises at Bank House on Cherry Street, near Colmore Row, following long-term forecasted growth across all of its added-value teams.

The office will accommodate around 40 members of staff and will include business advisors specialising in services including corporate finance, tax and forensic accountancy, to go alongside the now well-established insolvency and restructuring team.

Richard Tonks, Director at Baldwins, has overseen the growth of Baldwins’ presence in the UK’s second city at a time when the firm, which was founded in Walsall, has continued with a strategic acquisition of other accountancy practices across the UK to take Baldwins’ total number of offices to 84.

Richard said: “The new Birmingham office is a significant part of Baldwins’ growth plans for the West Midlands as it will act as a hub that provides reactive specialist support to our other offices in the region that are servicing SME businesses.

“It’s been a fantastic journey for the insolvency and restructuring team over the past 18 months and this is just the start. By moving our specialist services into Birmingham’s prestigious business district, it will help to reinforce Baldwins’ growing presence to the intermediary market.”

Praveen Gupta, National Head of Tax for Baldwins, added: “This is going to be one of the firm’s busiest offices for growth as it will tailor its activity to client needs. Currently, our corporate finance department is seeing a rise in mergers and acquisitions while the tax team is inundated with requests to ensure businesses are compliant with reporting their tax digitally by April 2019.”

Ian Gould is the Regional Director for Baldwins in the West Midlands, and believes the office is a game-changing investment for the Baldwins Group.

He said: “The new Birmingham office is a culmination of the Baldwins Group’s strategic acquisition plans over the past couple of years which has seen the firm join forces with other accountancy practices that offer specialist services to a thriving client base.

“Around 60 per cent of our 40-strong workforce in Birmingham are new recruits, which means we are now in a position where we can provide any type of specialist business support face-to-face to firms across the region.”