Osborne Clarke has advised UK law firm Shoosmiths on the spin-off of its successful recoveries business into a new joint venture.
Shoosmiths has launched ‘Equivo’ , a new dedicated recoveries business providing end-to-end collections, legal and enforcement services with collections, recoveries and enforcement business Chartsbridge.
Equivo has three key divisions; legal, collections and field, and enforcement covering all disciplines within the recoveries lifecycle within a single company structure.
A total of 182 Shoosmiths employees, including lawyers, and two partners are switching over to Equivo under TUPE with no redundancies. Chartbridge’s founder John Ingram has been appointed as CEO of Equivo, while Jim Taylor has joined Equivo in the role of Managing Director of the Legal Division after 24 years at Shoosmiths. In addition, Mel Chell, who remains a partner of Shoosmiths, will take on the role of Director of Client Experience and Culture at Equivo.
The Osborne Clarke team advising Shoosmiths was led by Rob Wood and Chris Voelker and included specialists Clare Burman (Financial Services), Anna Williams and Jennifer Tur (Commercial), Danielle Kingdon and Amy Moylett (Employment) and Sarah Beard (Real Estate). The deal follows Osborne Clarke advising professional services and technology firm Davies on its move into the insurance legal services sector and its acquisition of Keoghs in 2020.
Equivo will provide clients with modular or full-service recoveries solutions including legal services, High Court enforcement, motor and property repossessions and field services including process serving, reconnect services and trace activity. The clients are all within financial services and are made up of a mix of mainstream banks and other lenders and creditors.
Corporate communications and press contacts
Connect with one of our experts
