Knights Group . Regulatory News (KGH)

23 July 2020

Knights Group Holdings plc

("Knights" or the "Group")

Knights continues to invest to capitalise on market opportunities

Knights, one of the UK's fastest growing legal and professional services businesses, today announces it is investing in new office space to support the Group's growth ambitions in Birmingham and position it to take advantage of market opportunities in a post COVID-19 environment.

Having entered Birmingham through the acquisitions of well-established, full-service firm Emms Gilmore Liberson and commercial litigation specialist ERT during the past year, Knights will relocate its operations to newly built office space at Two Chamberlain Square. Knights will occupy 18,000 sq ft in the modern, open-plan workspace which forms part of the recently regenerated Paradise development in the heart of Birmingham and is located amongst the city's most prestigious listed civic and cultural buildings. The space has been designed to a high specification with capacity for up to 160 colleagues.

The Group has made significant progress in achieving its ambition to become the leading legal and professional services business outside London since listing on the Stock Exchange in June 2018. Since IPO, the Group more than tripled its number of employees to over 1,100 and has more than doubled its number of offices to 13 as it has developed its nationwide presence.

The move to prime city centre space in Birmingham follows the recently announced investment in new office premises in Leeds and Nottingham, providing capacity for Knights to recruit new, high calibre talent in key regional markets for legal services in the UK.

Knights also entered York organically earlier this year and has since committed to relocate to Hudson Quarter, a newly built and conveniently located modern development, set around a landscaped courtyard, in Spring 2021.

In 2019, following the acquisition of Turner Parkinson, Knights expanded into a new high quality office in Manchester that has seen the Group grow to over 180 colleagues in the North West.

Since 2016, Knights has also grown its presence in Oxford significantly from 100 to over 160 professionals. This year it expanded the capacity of its existing Oxford office following the acquisition of BrookStreet des Roches, providing capacity for up to 200 fee earners.

Today's announcement reflects Knights' ongoing commitment to provide a high-quality and collaborative working environment for its colleagues and will support its expansion in the region through recruitment as it continues to scale its presence across the UK.

All offices are modern premises in prime locations in their respective cities, supporting Knights' unique, modern, collaborative and paperless way of working, and providing capacity to support the Group's continued recruitment of high calibre individuals and teams. 

David Beech, CEO at Knights, commented:

"Ensuring our office spaces are fit for the needs of the modern lawyer is central to maintaining the strong operational backbone of the business that we have built. These open plan and larger premises give us the space to continue to expand in these key regions, while supporting our modern and collaborative way of working.

"Despite working from home efficiently, without any impact on productivity, offices remain key for a business that is focussed on team and culture. An excellent working environment not only allows work to be shared effectively across all levels, helping the development of skills across the business, but also reflects our commitment to attracting and retaining the best talent as we grow our operations across the UK.

"Despite short term market uncertainty created by COVID-19 we remain committed to investing in our business to best position ourselves to emerge stronger and take advantage of the pipeline of recruitment and acquisition opportunities that we expect to accentuate in the current market environment."

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Notes to Editors

Knights is a fast-growing, legal and professional services business, ranked within the UK's top 100 largest law firms by revenue. Knights was one of the first law firms in the UK to move from the traditional partnership model to a corporate structure in 2012 and has since grown rapidly. Knights has specialists in all key areas of corporate and commercial law so that it can offer end-to-end support to businesses of all sizes and in all sectors. It is focussed on key UK markets outside London and currently operates from 13 offices located in Birmingham, Cheltenham, Chester, Crawley, Leeds, Leicester, Maidstone, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford, Stoke, Wilmslow and York.