Knights Group buys employment specialist Cummins; H1 profit rises

Regional legal and professional services business Knights Group said on Tuesday that it has acquired Leicester-based employment specialist Cummins Solicitors for £1.57m, as it posted a jump in first-half revenue and profit.

Founded in 2010, Cummins services a number of high quality commercial clients. Its five fee earners will join Knights' existing Leicester office, bolstering the strength of the group's employment offering.

For the year to the end of December 2018, Cummins delivered revenue of £784,000 and adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of £175,000.

Knights Group chief executive officer David Beech said: "We are delighted to welcome Cummins to the group today. The firm has a strong reputation which supports our growth strategy and demonstrates the momentum we are now achieving. Michael Cummins is a respected leader in his field and the acquisition will enable us to take even more share in key geographical markets."

The company also released its first-half results, which showed a 103.6% surge in adjusted pre-tax profit to £4.4m in the six months to 31 October 2018, and a 36.6% increase in revenue to £23.9m. Adjusted EBITDA during the period was up 49.7% to £5.3m and Knights declared a maiden interim dividend of 0.6p per share.

Beech said: "We have delivered a strong financial performance of highly cash generative and profitable growth during the half year and made good progress with our ambitious strategy to develop the business organically and consolidate the legal and professional services sector outside London."

He said the strong trading performance of the first half has continued into the start of the second half and this, together with the new recruits and the full integration of Turner Parkinson and Spearing Waite, means the group is well placed to meet expectations for the full year.

Knights also announced the appointment with immediate effect of Richard King, formerly a non-executive director, as its chief operating officer.

It said King brings a strong combination of skills and experience in leading the scaling-up of business services, HR and sales as well as digitisation and acquisition integration in both large scale global corporations, including Procter & Gamble and Shell, and a start-up B2B cloud services provider, Transora.

At 1345 GMT, the shares were up 1.5% to 208p.