A business set up by a former key figure in Quindell Legal Services has announced the £13m acquisition of a personal injury firm as the first stage in a strategy to build a profitable PI business in the fixed-fee era. 

Pure Legal Limited, which was licensed as a alternative business structure in October, revealed today that it had completed the acquisition of York-based Pryers LLP.

It is the first acquisition by Pure, whose chief executive Phil Hodgkinson (pictured) became head of Quindell Legal Services after the stock exchange-listed venture bought his previous business, Compass Costs.

Hodgkinson left Quindell at the end of 2014. Quindell, which at one stage claimed to be the world’s largest stock exchange-quoted legal services business, exited the market earlier this year by selling its professional services division to Slater and Gordon.

In a statement today, Hodgkinson said the acquisition of Pryers was the first step in a five-year strategy. ‘Clinical negligence and product liability are both areas of work in which we wish to expand, and Pryers LLP are considered one of the top firms in the UK who specialise in these areas of work.

‘Our strategy is to acquire and collaborate with firms who have the necessary skillsets and experience in areas of legal work we wish to expand into and to couple that with organic growth as we deliver our initial five-year plan.’

Hodgkinson said that the plan ‘takes into account the financial effect that fixed fees will have on income in clinical negligence and, in our opinion, we are still left with an incredibly profitable business; we see these changes as an opportunity, not a hindrance’.

Pure is to pay £13m in cash for Pryers, which has six partners and some 20 solicitors and trainees. The current management team will be in place for a minimum period of three years, the statement said.

Pryers’ managing partner, Ian Pryer, said: ‘We will continue to build and expand our key areas of clinical negligence and product liability under the stewardship of Pure Legal and, in spite of the government’s attempts to limit the rights of injured people to claim redress, we will continue to fight on behalf of claimants under the Pure banner as we have done for many years.’