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Chester – 16 June 2021: Ellis Whittam is pleased to announce the latest acquisition by parent company Marlowe plc.

Employment law compliance specialist Cater Leydon Millard will join the Group for £2.25 million. This comprises an upfront consideration of £1.75m and a deferred consideration of £0.5m.

Cater Leydon Millard, established in 2004, is based in Abingdon, Oxfordshire and provides specialist employment law advice to companies across the UK. The acquisition deepens Marlowe’s employment law compliance offering and will offer attractive synergies with Ellis Whittam, the Group’s leading platform in the provision of recurring, fixed-fee Employment Law, HR and Health & Safety services and software. Cater Leydon Millard brings strong expertise in the Public and Education sectors.

Gavin Snell, CEO at Ellis Whittam, commented: “We’re very pleased to welcome our new colleagues into the Ellis Whittam family. Both organisations share an ethos of providing robust commercial advice and a commitment to quality. This deal illustrates the ambition we set out to acquire further businesses that complement our own, and we’re adding further depth of expertise to the support we offer our clients.”

Nathan Millard, Director and a founder at Cater Leydon Millard, said: “Quality and expertise has always been key for us and so we are delighted to be part of Marlowe’s specialist employment law and HR growth strategy. We look forward to further growth and realising the benefits for our clients of being part of a larger group with same aims and to leveraging Marlowe’s expertise in technology enabled services.”

The acquisition builds on a trio of previous acquisitions made by Marlowe plc in March. In deals worth a combined £5.15m, employment law firm and employee relations (ER) technology business ESPHR, HR software provider Youmanage, and third sector specialist HR Services Partnership (HRSP), joined Ellis Whittam and Law At Work (LAW) to strengthen the Group’s Employment Law and HR division.

With backing from Marlowe, the Group’s six-strong Employment Law arm, led by the Ellis Whittam brand, offers a perfect blend of services designed to help employers manage their employees and remain compliant with employment law.

“We’re very pleased to welcome our new colleagues into the Ellis Whittam family. Both organisations share an ethos of providing robust commercial advice and a commitment to quality. This deal illustrates the ambition we set out to acquire further businesses that complement our own, and we’re adding further depth of expertise to the support we offer our clients.”

Gavin Snell, CEO
Ellis Whitam

Further details about the transaction can be found in Marlowe plc’s announcement published on RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange.

About Ellis Whittam

Ellis Whittam helps over 35,000 UK employers to create great, safe places to work. What makes us unique is that we combine the service quality of a law firm with the certainty of fixed-fee services to provide expert, solutions-focused Employment LawHR and Health & Safety support tailored to your organisation.

Our aim is to help business owners:

  • Proactively solve problems;
  • Ensure regulatory compliance; and
  • Achieve commercial objectives.

Not only do we offer exceptionally good value for money, but we only recruit the best people, with the best qualifications and most commercial acumen. Our Legal Team has over 300 years’ combined experience of resolving problems, and our Health & Safety Team has over 350 years’ combined experience of keeping clients safe.

Since the beginning, we’ve believed in building long-term, close working relationships with our clients through advocating an honest, open approach. We take the time to get to know your organisation and understand your commercial objectives so that we can provide the best possible support. And it works.

About Cater Leydon Millard

Established in 2004, Oxfordshire-based Cater Leydon Millard is a specialist employment law firm providing a first-class service for employers throughout the UK.

The firm’s founders were partners and/or heads of department in large, regional firms who wanted to provide a boutique, ‘partner-led’ service focusing on employment law issues in a few key sectors, principally the NHS, education, technology and manufacturing.

Ranked as specialist employment lawyers in both the Chambers & Partners and The Legal 500 UK guides to law firms, its lawyers are active members of the Law Society, Industrial Law Society and the Employment Lawyers Association.

About Marlowe plc

Marlowe is a UK leader in business-critical services and software which assure safety and regulatory compliance. 

The company was formed to create sustainable shareholder value through the acquisition and development of businesses that provide regulated safety and compliance services. It is focused on health and safety, compliance software, employment law and HR compliance, fire safety, security, water treatment and air hygiene, and occupational health services – all of which are vital to the wellbeing of its customers’ operations and are invariably governed by regulation. 

Marlowe currently provides services to over 15% of Britain’s commercial premises and is increasingly attractive to customers who require a single outsourced nationwide provider of a comprehensive range of regulated compliance and safety services. Its customers can be found in most office complexes, high streets and leisure facilities, manufacturing plants and industrial estates, and include thousands of SMEs, local authorities, facilities management providers, multi-site NHS trusts and FTSE 100 companies.

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