Morrison Design Limited COMPLETES MBO

Posted in Business, News on 6 August, 2019

Morrison Design Limited, Derby’s oldest and largest chartered architectural practice has been acquired by its management team.

The deal has remained confidential until recently to ensure all clients were personally informed. The new owners and directors will be Peter Newman-Earp, David Gardner and Nik Clarke. The new management team take control of the business from former owners Nigel Walding and George Love. Nigel will continue to be involved in a consultancy role to provide his wealth of experience and knowledge.

Morrison Design was founded in 1948 by war veteran Sam Morrison and recently celebrated its 70^th anniversary.  The company provides architectural design, planning and project management services on commercial design and build and refurbishment projects for hotels, schools, fire stations and company offices and manufacturing facilities.

Working right through from initial planning and design to acting as project manager during the build phases, Morrison Design has been the appointed architect on many local, UK and overseas projects. These include Morley Hayes Golf Club, Rolls Royce, Lubrizol, a £91m five-star hotel in Grand Caymen and multiple hotel projects in London, Dublin and Portugal.

Hotel projects mainly involve working on behalf of independent hotel owners operating under leading brands such as Hilton, Mercure, Marriot, Point A, QBIC, Express by Holiday Inn and Crown Plaza. Morrison Design also recently secured a landmark ruling in Ireland, having helped a hotel chain secure planning permission to convert basement meeting rooms into bedrooms in Dublin. Ingenious design has enabled light into the bedrooms, and so satisfying the law that bedrooms cannot be below ground as they have to have a window.

Commenting on the MBO, Dave Gardner, Director said, “It’s a great relief to be able to talk more publicly about the deal and announce our plans for building our business as a team. We have worked on some really high-profile projects in the past, and going forward we hope to profile our work more prominently as we seek to expand our portfolio of clients and further build our credibility.”

Morrison Design is based in St. Alkmunds House on Belper Road, Derby which was originally the vicarage for the long-since demolished St. Alkmunds Church. The company currently has 20 employees.

Advisers on the deal were David Mellor from Johnson Tidsall and David Tomlinson from Powell & Co who acted on behalf of the MBO team.