Excellent experience start to finish – always very responsive to any queries and the turnaround on the property I was buying was very quick, even in the busy time leading up to stamp duty deadline. Jenny was always very helpful and went above and beyond to close on a short timescale.
On Friday the 13th, Davis Blank Furniss – the Manchester based law firm –acting on behalf of the owners of PH Jones Group Limited – the family-owned & Malpas-headquartered property and utilities maintenance group – completed it’s business sale to British Gas for £30m.
Andy McNish, corporate & commercial partner at Davis Blank Furniss, was assisted by Claire Reddington (Assistant Solicitor), and led the team throughout the sale. Tax law support was provided by partner Sonio Singh and by property law support by assistant Caroline Williams. The Birmingham office of Eversheds (partner Keri Rees leading) acted for the Buyer.
The sale saw the shareholders (who are members of the Jones family and certain key executives) sell all the shares in the group.
The group’s business comprises three main divisions; Homeservices (which provides heating, electrical plumbing, property maintenance and refurbishment, and renewable energy services), Utility Services (which installs and services gas and electricity meters as well as smart metering and automated meter reading installation) and Facilities Management (which provides a comprehensive package of specialist engineering and building services primarily to the commercial and public sectors).
However, the Utility Services Division is being retained by the Jones family and will continue to operate out of its current base in Wrexham.
Before the completion of the deal, the group had a combined turnover of £80million, over 1,000 directly employed staff, 29 regional offices and 13 directors.
Jon Schofield and Dave Graham of Dow Schofield Watts provided corporate finance advice to the shareholders of the company, and the accountants advising were James White and Malcolm Cook from the Stoke on Trent office of Baker Tilly.
Martin Jones says “I’d like to thank all our advisors for their hard work in completing this transaction in the timescales set out, which is down to the hard work of everyone involved”.