“Greater firepower”: PI giant bought by private equity

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Maxey: Succession planning

The country’s biggest dedicated personal injury (PI) law firm has been bought by private equity, giving it “greater firepower” for acquisitions.

Manchester-based Express Solicitors has sold a majority stake to Ufenau Capital Partners, which specialises in buy-and-build strategies for European service companies – this is its first UK deal.

Set up in 2000, Express has grown significantly in recent years, both organically and through a series of acquisitions. Its most recent turnover figure was nearly £89m – up 25% on the previous year – and it has 830 staff.

Chief executive James Maxey told Legal Futures that the firm had gone out looking for investment 18 months ago, supported by Bluebox Corporate Advisory, and had been speaking to Ufenau for a year, including an exhaustive due diligence process.

There were three drivers. First was succession planning, given that he had been the majority owner. Though he expected to remain in place for several years, “a firm of this size needs a plan where it continues after I’m not here”, he said.

Second was the “greater firepower” that Ufenau’s backing would provide. He has never bought a firm that was more than 20% of Express’s size and, while he was “agnostic” about the size of deals it would do in future, it was now “better placed” to buy a large practice.

Mr Maxey said the plan was “more of the same”. He added: “Not in a boring way – a lot of more of the same.” There was “no shortage of opportunities”.

Ufenau provided skilled support as well as money, he continued. “I expect a lot of my job over the next few years to be M&A.”

Finally, “like any PE sale, there’s an element of me taking money off the table” after successfully building the business from scratch.

Express will remain focused on all types of personal injury, including clinical negligence, “where you can afford a lawyer” – meaning not low-value road traffic claims caught by the Official Injury Claim portal.

Others have targeted high-value catastrophic claims. While Mr Maxey said Express did these too, “I’ve always thought it terrible that mid-range injuries have been abandoned by lawyers”.

He went on: “We’re determined to represent clients across the whole spectrum of injuries. If you get the economics of scale and volume right, you can do that.”

Express also owns the InjuryLawyers4U brand, and earlier this year successfully fought off a claim brought by some of its original law firm members. The Court of Appeal has since refused permission to appeal.

In recent months, IL4U’s panel has been winnowed down to just its remaining founder firms – four others, plus Express – as the growth of Express meant it could handle the work generated.

Mr Maxey said it was “not logical” for Express to look for work elsewhere while IL4U provided other firms with cases.

He said some of the new backing would go to help IL4U become “clearly the predominant brand” in the market.

Ralf Flore, managing partner at Ufenau, said: “Not only does this mark Ufenau’s first platform investment in the UK market since we opened the office in 2024, it serves as a strong platform to execute our systematic buy-and-build approach, while building on our expertise in the highly fragmented sector of professional legal services.”

Express is Ufenau’s third professional services investment this year, following Spanish legal, tax and advisory group Asenza Global Partners and PKF WMS in Germany, which provides auditing, accounting, tax and legal services.