The Board of LHi Group have announced that they have completed the sale of approximately 80 per cent of the company share capital to an Employee Ownership Trust, giving every employee now and in the future a 6-figure stake in the business.
“This deal is the culmination of a 5-year plan that has seen the business transform into a $100m turnover, a multi-brand market specialist with 8 International offices and over 300 staff,” explained chairman, James Ash. “Having looked at both trade and private equity options, we were ultimately most attracted to the EOT structure, which means we will continue as an employee-owned business. Tom Glanfield was incredibly generous to previously allocate half the equity in the company to over a hundred option holders and now the EOT structure allows us to expand on this ethos. I’m extremely grateful to our CFO, Ed Parkes who, with his team, has done a fantastic job of getting this deal done alongside advisors Grant Thornton, Moorcrofts, and Shoosmiths.”
Tom Glanfield started his business using a graduate loan 20 years ago. “This is the biggest day in the history of LHi since that first morning when I started working from my attic,” he said. “Together we can look back on the legacy of the first 20 years with an incredible sense of achievement. I’m so proud of what we have all accomplished and delighted to see so much wealth created now, and so much that will be created in the future with this new ownership structure.”
The LHi Board and Management team remain unchanged with Tom Glanfield remaining a shareholder and continuing as a non-executive director. The company has exciting plans to double in size over the next three years through the continued growth of specialist brands operating in some of the fastest-growing market segments in the recruitment industry.
Recently, the Group – which includes the brands Lawrence Harvey, SciPro, Piper Maddox, Harper Harrison, and XPS – has achieved the number one spot in two of the latest Best Companies rankings. Now that award-winning culture is combined with an EOT ownership structure that will see all current and future employees become members of a trust that owns 80 per cent of the group.
CEO Jim Denning comments: “LHi has always been a special place, one with certain stardust that you have to be in it to really feel and understand what makes it great. From today, we have an opportunity to take this business into a whole new dimension by combining the best culture in the industry with a vehicle that creates true wealth, not just for those at the very top but opportunity and wealth for each and every person, from associate consultants to CEO. The previous option scheme was amazing but with the EOT in place for the next part of the journey it really is game-changing in the industry.”
