Manchester’s Pannone is offering voluntary redundancies to around 100 staff as a result of its recently announced takeover by Slater & Gordon (S&G).
As reported by RollOnFriday today (9 December), there will be no compulsory redundancies but Pannone has informed around 100 individuals that it is unlikely that there will be positions waiting for them at S&G. Neither Pannone nor S&G would comment when contacted by Legal Business.
After months of wrangling over which parts of Pannone would move over to Slater & Gordon, the firms finally announced that Australian-listed S&G would acquire the consumer personal injury (PI) business of Pannone in late November in a deal worth £33m.
The ASX-listed firm acquired the majority share of Pannone, including personal injury and serious injury, clinical negligence, court of protection, family, wills, trusts and probate, property, as well as some elements of the employment and dispute resolution practice areas, with the aim of increasing S&G’s operations in the UK by around 50% and grow headcount to over 1200.
For Pannone, the deal brings to an end a tough few years for the firm financially with revenues suffering as its key insurance business has been increasingly squeezed. It wasn’t the worst performing firm of the Legal Business 100 this year, but nonetheless has seen revenues fall 10% in the last five years from £50.8m to £45.6m.
Pannone Corporate LLP will now spin-off on its own, led by head of dispute resolution and regulatory Paul Jonson and senior partner Steven Grant. During the final stages of negotiations it emerged that executive board member David Jabbari, who joined Pannone a year ago from his role as COO at Clyde & Co, had resigned.
Other regional personal injury (PI) players to announce redundancies recently include Lyons Davidson, which having made two successive major joint ventures with Admiral and AA, made around 50 redundancies in mid-November. Leeds-based Walker Morris also recently confirmed that it is to close its PI business, making around 48 staff at risk of redundancy as a result of the closure, while Co-operative Legal Services also confirmed in late November that its personal insurance division was undergoing a restructuring that was likely to result in 60 job cuts.
sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk
