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Rosenblatt: My firm regained its independence
The break-up of listed legal business RBG Holdings was confirmed today after Ian Rosenblatt celebrated taking back control of the law firm at the heart of it.
The 40-strong team from the London-based dispute resolution firm has joined the new law firm Rosenblatt Law, trading as ‘Rosenblatt’.
RBG retains London non-contentious practice Memery Crystal, which was acquired in 2021 for £30m, but has this afternoon announced that it has “regrettably” filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators.
As a result, Singer Capital Markets Advisory has resigned as the group’s nominated adviser. AIM rules require appointment of a replacement within a month or the listing of the shares will be cancelled.
“The company has no current intention of appointing a replacement nominated adviser,” an announcement said.
It all follows a stand-off between Mr Rosenblatt and the board of RBG after a period of financial instability,with falling turnover and losses, that led to the group retrenching into core legal services by selling off its litigation funding business Lionfish and M&A advisory firm Convex Capital.
The disagreement broke into the open late last year when Mr Rosenblatt sought to oust the group’s chief executive, and continued with a war of words earlier this month.
The two sides then called a truce to enter into talks about this deal and this week’s the group’s shares were suspended amid concerns about its solvency.
Rosenblatt has appointed Jonathan Watmough, former managing partner of City firm RPC, as its chair and commercial and operational executive Adil Taha as chief executive. Mr Taha has worked for various legal businesses, including gunnercooke and Mezzle, and was most recently chief operating officer of private equity firm 11 Group.
Mr Rosenblatt’s senior colleagues Tania MacLeod and Anthony Field have also joined the board as head of dispute resolution and partner respectively.
Mr Rosenblatt is the senior partner. He said: “I founded Rosenblatt in 1989 – it has been my life’s work. Today my firm regained its independence – the same name, the same team, and the same drive but without the previous distractions of being owned by a listed company.
“I am so proud of all my colleagues and the exceptional work we do for our valued clients and would like to thank them all for their loyalty and support. We are all immensely excited about the future.”
The break-up of Memery Crystal appears to have started too, with City firm Lawrence Stephens announcing that it has hired five new directors for its real estate group from Memery Crystal, including John Aynsley, who was its group head of real state.
Mr Rosenblatt listed his firm in May 2018, the fourth law firm to go public, raising approximately £43m, of which he was reported to have made £8m from selling some of his shares. Mr Rosenblatt retained a 20.5% stake in the business and is its largest shareholder.
The group listed at 105p and hit its all-time high of 148p in June 2021 but the share price was less than a penny when the shares were suspended.
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