A Cheltenham-headquartered conveyancing firm has been valued at over £20m just four years after launching following significant private equity investment.
Montpellier Legal, with offices Bath, Cheltenham, Cirencester, Gloucester, London, Stroud and Worcester, was launched in 2021 and says it has leveraged technology and invested in its staff to achieve ‘impressive growth since inception.” Founder Simon Thomas, who will remain with the business as CEO, said the investment values the conveyancing firm at over £20m.
The investment comes from private equity firm Foresight, which says it ‘invests in promising growing companies, providing equity or debt to meet the needs of founders and management teams wherever they are on their journey.’ The investment will support further expansion across the south west of England including the opening of new offices.
Alongside Thomas, Chief Risk and Operations Officer Lucy Batten, and Chief Operating Officer Nick Ponting remain in situ and Tom Hartley joined the business as Non-Executive Chair to further strengthen the leadership team. Hartley has significant expertise in scaling and successfully exiting professional services businesses. A Chief Financial Officer is being recruited to build out the senior leadership team.
Simon Thomas, CEO of Montpellier Legal, commented:
“We are really excited to partner with Foresight as we enter the next stage of Montpellier Legal’s journey, especially given their established track record in successfully backing ambitious fast growing businesses. Their expertise will enable us to accelerate our growth plans whilst continuing to deliver the first-class service that our clients and introducer partners have come to expect.”
Amy Crofton, Managing Director at Foresight Group, added:
“This is our second investment from the Foresight South West Fund, and we are delighted to back such an experienced team in such a demonstrably high quality business. Their commitment to customer satisfaction and service excellence aligns perfectly with our investment philosophy, and we are excited to support their continued expansion and success.”
3 responses
Hopefully this sort of investment from outside the legal profession leading to a dumbing down of conveyancing will be something outlawed after the Government have carried out their review. Certainly something I have put near the top of my list as a reason for problems etc.
If you can’t even put your name to your comments, you don’t deserve a voice and quite frankly, your opinion is clearly worthless.
Investment from outside the industry is what is going to drive much needed change. Conveyancing doesn’t need to suffer from the use of technology, if fact it’s the opposite. Transactions can be streamlined, more transparent and timely.
If you do not adopt technology, you will not survive in the long run.
If you have nothing sensible to say, as usual, as we all know you work outside the profession and clearly therefore also have a worthless opinion, just say nothing.
And proptech people always say collaboration not confrontation, right before they start getting aggressive. That’s why you have no place in Conveyancing.