Black: New phase
Private equity-backed BBS Law has unveiled a new national brand, Orwins, as it announced the first of a planned string of acquisitions.
It has bought 40-strong Reading firm Clarkslegal, which means Orwins now has close to 150 staff across London, Manchester and Reading and a turnover of £23m.
Clarkslegal, which has nine partners, is a full-service commercial law firm. In its most recent accounts – including its associated HR consultancy Forbury People – reported a profit of £2.5m on a turnover of £6.1m.
We revealed last month that Aliter Capital quietly took a majority stake in Manchester-based BBS Law in autumn 2024 and backed its acquisition of North London commercial firm Carter Bond last autumn.
Managing partner Dov Black said he planned to get to £50-60m turnover in the next two years.
Speaking yesterday, he explained that Orwin was Old English for ‘brave ally’, while Mr Black also liked having ‘win’ in the name.
“I think it’s got heritage. It’s got presence. It feels like it’s been around for a while,” he said.
More specifically, the name “represents a new phase of the journey” for the practice, he went on. “If you’re becoming one law firm nationally, you’re much better off creating a new brand.”
The firm’s tagline is: “The law firm that stands behind your boldest decisions.”
Clarkslegal was in the process of looking for investment when Mr Black was introduced to them.
“They had lots of offers and opportunities and I think they chose us for the same reason that I chose Aliter: a focus on looking after people, retaining staff and retaining culture.”
The Orwins model contrasts with some others in the market by expressly not looking to cut costs and overheads in the firms it acquires – or put more basically, redundancies.
“I stood up in front of the Clarkslegal team on Tuesday and said, ‘I want you all to come on the journey with us’. And I meant it.”
Mr Black explained that Clarkslegal was in a similar position to BBS a couple of years ago: “They’d grown to a certain size and they saw the growth of the consolidator model, PE coming into the market. They saw AI and tech and they saw that it was going to be very hard for them at their size to be able to continue at that level and compete.
“They decided the best thing would be to team up with similar like-minded firms around the country and become part of a national practice.”
Mr Black is currently at the ‘legals’ stage with two more firms as he looks to create regional hubs in all of the key cities in England and Wales.
The rebrand was also an opportunity “to really announce yourself” to the market, he added.
“We spent a lot of time building the integration readiness of the platform and that’s why we were under the radar. We were busy building marketing, HR, finance, compliance and IT – the five central functions.”
As he told us last month, finding the acquisitions is the easy bit – it is the integration that’s tough.
Monica Atwal, managing partner at Clarkslegal said: “This investment will enable us to enhance the services we provide to our valued clients now and in the future, while giving our team a strong platform on which we can grow and thrive.”
Meanwhile, another private equity-backed firm, commercial and insurance firm HF, has announced its third acquisition of the year after buying London firm Rosling King out of administration. Around 40 staff are moving over.
Ronan McCann, chief executive and managing partner of HF, said: “Within HF, they will provide the same excellent standard of service, backed by HF’s scale, innovation and technology.”
It follows HF’s deal earlier this month for 250-strong health and social care specialist Hempsons and the deal announced in February for the most of the assets of the alternative business structure owned by global insurance services firm Crawford & Company.
