Listed professional services business Gateley has added a boutique IP firm to its stable on the back of an £80m credit facility announced earlier this year. The £9m acquisition of Groom Wilkes & Wright LLP is Gateley’s 15th in the 10 years since becoming the first law firm to list in its own account on the London Stock Exchange. 

Hertfordshire-based Groom Wilkes & Wright, founded in 2004, specialises in trade mark and design law. In the year to 5 April it reported profits before tax of £1.4 million on revenue of £4.7m. 

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The firm, led by senior partners Trevor Wright and Katy Adams, will operate within Gateley’s 'business services platform' and continue to trade under the name Groom Wilkes & Wright, Gateley said. It will work alongside trade mark and patent attorneys Adamson Jones and life sciences patent attorneys Symbiosis IP, both acquired by Gateley in 2022.

Rod Waldie

Waldie: 'Huge potential for future growth'

The acquisition deal involves an initial payment of £5.725m, funded from Gateley's £80m revolving credit facility announced in April. The balance, to a maximum of £9 million, will be paid by a share issue with an additional consideration based on the GWW's earnings in each of the two years after completion.

All members of the Groom Wilkes & Wright management team will remain with the business.

Rod Waldie, Gateley's chief executive, said: 'This strategic acquisition will extend our reach in trade mark work across our consultancy and legal services teams who operate in this field. The acquisition forms part of our acquisitive and organic growth plan to develop a distinct and innovative intangible assets offering that further builds on the extensive expertise we have in the market and where we are already seeing huge potential for further growth.'

Trevor Wright, senior partner and founder of GWW, said: 'I'm thrilled that my colleagues and I are joining Gateley today. Since our first meeting I have been impressed by their strategic vision of building deep expertise in a broad range of trade mark and wider IP professional services, and by the progress they have made to date in delivering that strategy. We share the same core values of a commitment to excellence in client service, delivered as a team.'

Shares in Gateley Holdings plc, which achieved a monthly high of 127p on Friday, slipped 0.4% to 126.5p today.