Finance broker Hilton-Baird Group has been acquired by specialist business advisory firm FRP Advisory Group.

The deal is worth an initial £7m consideration and an amount for the net assets acquired on completion, estimated by FRP to be around £1.4m, as well as a three-year performance based earn-out linked to profits.

Hilton-Baird Group, based in Southampton, provides commercial finance and credit insurance brokerage, outsourced risk and receivables audit, as well as credit management and commercial debt collection services. The group’s clients include independent lenders, banks, SME and corporate businesses as well as insolvency practitioners.

The firm will continue to operate under the Hilton-Baird brand and sit within FRP’s debt advisory pillar. Four of the firm’s directors, Alex Hilton-Baird, Evette Orams, Graham Bird, and Ian Tramaseur will join FRP as partners, with the rest of the Hilton-Baird team comprising 36 colleagues also joining FRP.

Hilton-Baird founder, Alex Hilton-Baird, said: “Building on the strength of our fantastic team, joining FRP will enable us to continue to attract and grow the talent necessary to deliver our market leading brokerage, ABL audit and commercial debt collection services on a national basis, while continuing to grow our direct services to SME, corporate and advisory clients."

The total consideration for the transaction is split between cash of £5.6m, the issue of new ordinary shares worth a value of £2.8m, and the performance based earn-out.

Hilton-Baird is FRP’s ninth acquisition since admission to AIM trading on the London Stock Exchange in March 2020, which the group’s CEO, Geoff Rowley, said demonstrates its ability to “generate sustainable profitable growth”.

“The combination with Hilton-Baird provides opportunities to support growth across several of FRP’s service pillars and I have no doubt it will make a strong contribution to the group, as we continue to grow profitably,” Rowley added.

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