Dean Curtis

I’m Dean and I lead corporate finance transactions for a wide range of clients.

My team and I, advise entrepreneurs and owner-managed businesses on transactions whether selling their business, acquiring businesses, or raising finance to grow.

Patrick Wilson

I’m Patrick and I’m a manager in our Corporate Finance department. We provide support to owners, directors, and staff of small to medium size businesses. This can include major moments like company disposals and acquisitions, seeking loan funding or refinancing, or other advisory services including due diligence, financial modelling, and valuations.

I’ve had a number of roles supporting businesses as internal staff or as an external advisor from operations and business analysis to accounts and tax compliance. The experience helps me understand our clients, their businesses, and their needs. My aim is always to provide a timely and responsive service.

John Jones

I’m John, and I head up our Corporate Services team, advising on all aspects of corporate finance and litigation support. It’s a small team but plays a big part in ensuring Beever and Struthers offers a wide range of support and advice to our clients at transformational stages of their business life.

Whether you need funding to grow organically, are looking for a step-change through acquisitions or ultimately looking to realise the value in your business through some form of exit, we have the skills and experience to help you find the best option to meet your objectives. We can also help with detailed investigations, whether carrying out financial due diligence for funders or forensic analysis to support a legal matter.

‘Every day is doomsday: how a food bank is struggling to keep up and diversify, encouraging Manchester businesses to address furniture poverty’

It’s a scenario you wouldn’t think exists in 2023, and yet, the above is just one of the many requests our support team receive on a weekly basis. Relaxing on the sofa when you get home from work, blasting yesterday’s leftovers in the microwave, washing your bedsheets every week. The routines we take for granted are out of range for many in Greater Manchester — due to living in furniture poverty.

Typically hidden, the concept of furniture poverty evades many — it is simply inconceivable in an age of surplus and ‘fast furniture’, hundreds of thousands of children across the UK go to sleep on the floor. The above video by BBC Morning Live illustrates this, with a feature of Mustard Tree on how we are helping to tackle the issue.

Context
End Furniture Poverty describes furniture poverty (including white goods) as the ‘inability to access, afford to buy or maintain, any household furniture or appliance item that is essential to achieve a socially acceptable standard of living.’ You can read more about the campaign here.

Thanks to the support from individuals and businesses who support Mustard Tree, we can combat furniture poverty head on through our Community Shops, where items are made available at very low cost, or given directly to people in need.

This could be for a client facing crisis (i.e. a new washing machine to replace one which has stopped working) or someone who has previously been homeless and since secured a permanent tenancy.

More recently, we’ve benefitted from larger collections from local hotels and businesses, some of which took the opportunity to relocate or refurbish during the Covid-19 pandemic. Others came through collaborative work with partner organisations.

Making Sustainability Part of the Furniture
Staycity Manchester Piccadilly Aparthotel previously worked with Mustard Tree through the Manchester Hoteliers Association — and reached out to donate sofa beds, tables, chairs and bedside cabinets.

Sophie Atalay, General Manager says “as a business we strive to support our local community. Donating furniture not only supports local people, but it also aids us on our journey towards a more sustainable future.”

“We first heard about Mustard Tree from one of our clients, who wanted to donate old furniture” says Alistair Dickson, Managing Director of Project Furniture Residential.

“Mustard Tree is always our first thought when we acquire items that can be reused and rehomed. Since March 2022, we have donated over 120 items. The bulk of these donations have been loose furniture items, including beds, mattresses, dining tables and chairs. These items were either removed from residential properties or rejected from stock due to minor defects.”

Alistair says: “Project Group are making a promise to take responsible steps to minimise our carbon emissions. Partnerships like ours with Mustard Tree not only creates opportunities for the community, supports the combat of poverty and helps prevent homelessness, but it also encourages our zero waste to landfill philosophy. Subsequently, contributing to our mission to be carbon neutral”.

More than just a Washing Machine
Having access to low-cost electrical goods could be the difference between keeping a tenancy and falling into crisis. Clients who cannot afford to replace a broken appliance (such as a washing machine or fridge), could turn to payday lenders or loan sharks as a short-term solution. This can easily lead to falling into arrears, with debt being the number one cause of homelessness in Greater Manchester.

One study from ‘No Place Like Home’, a report into poverty and furnished tenancy provision in social housing, captures why something as simple as a washing machine can provide dignity and even create opportunity for someone to improve their employment prospects:

“It would be nice to have had a washing machine included in the tenancy provision package, simply because of self-sufficiency, do you know what I mean? I can come home, wash and dry my clothes when I come home at the end of the day. Then I can go and get a job and my life can get nice again.”

A sizeable opportunity arose when Molo Hotels offered 80+ washing machines and dryers during a clearance of the La Reserve Aparthotel — enough goods to stock our Community Shops for over three months. Andrew Ross who oversaw the collection understood the significance of the donation, and that Molo Hotels were “very happy to be working with a local charity and delighted that the goods will be put to good use”.

Perfectly good items otherwise destined for landfill were kindly donated by Beever and Struthers Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors during an office move, including multiple fridges, freezers, microwaves, toasters and kettles.

Geraldine Finn, Marketing & Business Development Director says: “Mustard Tree is one of our client’s and also a neighbour in Ancoats, where we seek, as sensitively as possible, to take into account the wishes of our neighbours whilst managing our business. Many of our employees are involved in charities and schools as trustees, governors and volunteers.

Geraldine Finn

I’m Geraldine and look after all things marketing and business development related. From branding to business relationships, I try to cover all bases. My team and I make sure that #teambeevers are represented in the best way and in all the right places.

With over 20 years of experience, I enjoy working with like-minded individuals who are keen to engage, grow and ensure their business is a sustainable one. I love the work I do with clients around social value and community projects, and not forgetting the time I spend with students in my role as Enterprise Advisor at a secondary school in Lancashire.

Net zero

The UN’s Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), presented a pivotal moment of opportunity to reach a global agreement on critical reductions in CO₂ emissions. More fundamentally, nearly every industry is under grassroots pressure from clients and stakeholders to go “cleaner and greener”. The decisions business leaders make every day, to adapt and survive, need to be aligned to society’s expectations.

91% of leaders believe that how they respond to events that impact society reflects on their brand and overall client perception of their business. In this crucial Decade of Action, Beever and Struthers wants to ensure that we are a force for good: positively transforming society and the planet by measuring its own impact on the environment.

From the obvious physical effects of climate change such as extreme weather conditions and resource scarcity, to regulatory changes and compliance, and increased demand for sustainability: the climate crisis has a clear and direct impact on business and business costs.

Beever and Struthers is committed to becoming a truly sustainable business through minimising any adverse effects our activities have on both the local and wider environment.

How do we reroute our business towards sustainability and eventual de-carbonisation?

Read the full document here.

Accountants and business advisors Beever and Struthers and law firm Farleys Solicitors advise on acquisition of Bliss by PHD Group

Accountants and business advisors Beever and Struthers have successfully advised Bliss Distribution Limited on its sale to Peachstate Hobby Distribution (PHD) LLC of the USA.

Based in Blackburn Lancashire, Bliss, a leading UK-based distributor of trading cards, toys, games, and collectibles to businesses around the world, has become part of PHD Group, a global distributor of sports cards, entertainment cards, collectible card games, board games, miniatures, and hobby-related supplies, based in Orlando, Florida.

PHD has six US locations, along with global locations for Coqui Hobby Distribution in Sao Paulo, Brazil and PHD HK in Hong Kong.

Bliss was advised by Beever and Struthers, led by corporate Finance Director Dean Curtis and supported by corporate finance Assistant Manager, Patrick Wilson.

Legal advice was provided by a team at Farleys led by corporate partner Debbie King, assisted by Amy Duncan and Victoria Mitchell on employment law aspects of the transaction and Olivia Hepworth on commercial property.

Legal advice to PHD was provided by a team at Blake Morgan led by corporate partner Mathew Wilson, while Francis Clark at PKF Francis provided financial due diligence support.

Cathryn added: “I would also like to express my thanks to Beever and Struthers and Farleys for their help, support and advice. They worked tirelessly to ensure that the sale completed as smoothly as possible which enabled me to remain focused on running the business throughout the process.”

Dean Curtis said:

Donuts. Coffee. Gardening. Cleaning. Taxi driving. Painting. Marketing. Scaffolding. We don’t do those but do lots of things to do with finance.

Whether you are a multi-million-pound company or a ‘newbie’ adventuring out in business on your own for the first time as a sole trader, in partnership or as a limited liability company we can provide you with a whole range of services to support you at the beginning, and help you grow and progress.

Our client portfolio of over 2,400 corporate and SME clients, covering many different sectors and operating numerous business models, provide us with the opportunity to deliver our accounting, auditing, and advisory skills on a daily basis.

We take pride in and enjoy the thrill of helping our clients operate at the best level they can, seeing them grow, operate profitably and contribute to society. Who doesn’t like seeing acorns grow into oak trees, and all the better when we are part of that process.

On the flip side, of course businesses can suffer difficulty and challenging times, and we also help business in this situation through our Business Recovery department.

Helen Binns

I’m Helen and I manage a diverse portfolio of clients in the world of SMEs and owner-managed businesses. I’ve been providing invaluable guidance to businesses across a range of sectors, including professional services, manufacturing, and retail for over two decades. But that’s not all…

I have a real passion for the charitable and not-for-profit sectors too, where purpose is so important and aligns to my values. Linked to this I’m a trustee at Pendleside Hospice where I can use my financial expertise and insight to support the hospice’s mission to provide compassionate care to those in need.

I like to support my clients with a comprehensive range of services, from strategic planning to compliance matters and believe in building strong bonds with clients, to get to know them on a personal level and understand their uniqueness. By doing so, I can partner with them on their journey to success, helping guide their businesses forward.

Caroline Monk

I’m Caroline, and I head up the firm, along with Maria. The two of us work hard to make sure that Beever and Struthers stays close to its roots. Providing our clients with a service that’s friendly, no-nonsense – and definitely not short on expertise.

What this means is that I help our clients develop their businesses through a wide range of audit, accounting and tax compliance issues – advising on best practice and being a “level head” when it comes to business strategy, structuring or governance.