On 4 July 2019 Clarke Bell celebrated its 25th birthday.
The firm of Licensed Insolvency Practitioners was formed in 1994 by its senior partner, John Bell, from a room in his Cheshire home. The company is now based in an office in central Manchester; and employs 18 members of staff.
It’s always been an aim of John’s to shake up and modernise the offerings provided by Insolvency Practitioners, and Clarke Bell is certainly doing that now.
John said:
“The mission of this firm is to provide a low cost, speedy and professional liquidation service for company directors – throughout the UK.
For far too long company directors have had to put up with high fees and slow processes when they’ve put their company through a liquidation process.
Clarke Bell have a different approach. When we put a company into liquidation, we charge low fees and process the case as quick as we can, whilst ensuring we are complying with the ICAEW’s insolvency regulations. We can provide this service thanks to our wealth of experience and our investments in staff and IT.
This is all great news for clients – although it’s not good for those Insolvency Practitioners who are still charging high fees and keeping cases open for longer than necessary. Clients no longer accept this.
Thanks to the Internet, directors and their Accountants are shopping around to make sure they aren’t paying more than they have to for liquidating a company. And they’re not restricted by location, as they can use an Insolvency Practitioner anywhere in the county – instead of than having to use a firm local to them.”
Award winning liquidations
This approach has proved to be very successful, and Clarke Bell have received eight awards over the last two years for the number of insolvency appointments they have taken.
The next 28 years?
John’s intentions are that the company will continue to grow and grow.
There are likely to be lots of directors / contractors who will want to close down their solvent companies using the Members’ Voluntary Liquidation process – especially with the changes in the IR35 rules.
Also, many experts are expecting the country to go into Recession within the next two years. This means a lot of company owners will be looking for advice on how to deal with their business debts and cashflow problems.
A key part of the Clarke Bell group of companies is Get Probate Limited, which helps people who are looking for help with probate.
This is another area where the firm is looking to shake things up.
The probate market is one which has been dominated by solicitors and banks who have received lots of criticism for providing an expensive and slow service.
Get Probate is a firm of probate practitioners authorised by the ICAEW to do non-contentious probate activities. We provide a low cost and speedy probate services – in the same way we provide insolvency services.
So, it’s going to be a busy time ahead for John and his team.
