Kelly Partners Group: UK Expansion & ETL Global

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From your experience as a practitioner working for firms, which elements add value for a partner beyond money for the previous owners?

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The main thing is having access to more financial clout to finance your work in progress and debtors, and access to an experienced set of people who can run a business. Accountants are notoriously bad at running their own firm or other firms on behalf of anybody else. Their work in progress is always too high, many firms simply don't bill at the right time, and even if they do, their debt collection is poor. If you have a large debtors and work in progress book, you might as well shut up shop.

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From your experience as a practitioner working for firms, which elements add value for a partner beyond money for the previous owners?

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When you are on this road, you need critical mass to benefit from a chief executive officer who is experienced in running firms. There's a lot you can buy in if you have the critical mass, although there comes a time when it needs to be in-house. The most important thing is the person at the top, which is not that easy because the wrong person cannot take the partners with them, so that is also a disaster. If I haven't put you off yet, I don't think I ever will, but if Kelly have critical mass and the right people within their own organization or access to the right people going forward, there are opportunities. You have to be cognizant of embracing the vendor, partner and shareholders, which is what ETL do. Post-acquisition, ETL are very good in liaison but they stay out of the way, as long as everybody is making what they forecast in their budgets.

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