LAVA Advisory transitions to employee ownership trust

Deals consulting firm LAVA Advisory Partners has announced it will transform its ownership model to an employee ownership trust. By the company’s reckoning, this would be the UK's first boutique M&A advisory firm to transition to such a model.

Founded in September 2020, LAVA Advisory Partners was designed to disrupt the M&A industry, aiming to supply new approaches to both dealmaking and teambuilding. Sector-agnostic, the boutique endeavours to form tailored solutions for every client, and has subsequently secured its position as M&A advisor of choice for novel or complex deals in the UK.

This approach has enabled LAVA to double its headcount in the past 12 months, adding further deep technical expertise as well as investing to provide additional value to clients. With this period of success, founding partners Simon Woodcock and Hamish Martin have been reflecting on the aims they launched LAVA with – particularly the goal of creating ‘a place we actually wanted to work’.

Looking to keep that dream alive, the company’s leadership has announced it will transition to an employee ownership trust (EOT). EOTs grant employees effective ownership of the company, potentially motivating employees to drive further growth, as they hold a stake in the long-term success of the company and stand to benefit from any future dividends. EOTs are also the fastest growing form of business ownership in the UK. As of June 2023 the total number of companies owned partially or fully by their employees had expanded by 37% in just 12 months.

LAVA has handled several such transitions in the past for clients. Speaking on the move, Hamish Martin noted that he believed it would help take the boutique to a new level, while also securing its ethos as an employee-friendly space.

He explained, “In this industry there are so many stories of boutique firms being bought up and broken down for parts and we wanted to make sure the team felt secure in LAVA’s future. We’ve advised many clients to go down this route with great success, so it’s only logical that we take our own advice and embrace this new phase of LAVA’s story.”

With 100% of shares transitioning to employee ownership, a release from the firm also contended that this was a historic first for the industry. It noted that LAVA “has become the UK’s first boutique M&A advisory firm to transition” to an EOT. At the same time, with LAVA holding certified B Corp status, and committing 2.5% of annual revenues directly to its charity partners, the deal further underpins its “unique approach and ongoing commitment to doing the right thing for clients, employees, and the community.”

Simon Woodcock concluded, “Over the past four years LAVA has gone from strength to strength, and it’s really important to us not only that we can continue that growth, but also that we can capitalise on an opportunity to secure the future of our team and make sure they continue to feel truly invested in the company they’ve helped us build.”