Your clients keep their accountant
No rebrand, no call centre, no "your account has moved". The firms we buy keep trading under their own name with the team clients already know.
Chester practices are often the oldest and most carefully built in the region: decades of reputation, professional clients, and standards the owner is rightly proud of. Selling that to a consolidator that retires the name feels like a betrayal. Selling it to us is not: preserving the firm is our whole model.
Chester wears its history on its sleeve, and so do its accountancy firms. Practices here hold client relationships that predate cloud software by decades: professionals, landed businesses, family companies from across West Cheshire and the borders. When owners of firms like these start planning an exit, their first worry is rarely the price; it is the legacy.
Our group was built for exactly that worry. Four North West firms have joined us, from a founding Liverpool practice to a Southport firm two decades old, and each one still trades under its own name with its own people. We modernise the plumbing, not the personality: technology, compliance support, payroll and cover happen behind the scenes, while the firm your clients chose stays recognisably itself.
Because we buy directly, the process respects both your time and your privacy. No percentage to a broker, no engagement fee, no months of anonymous listing. A discreet conversation, a clear view of value reasoned on your actual numbers, and terms in plain English for your own advisers to test.
From the city walls out to Tarporley, Frodsham, Ellesmere Port and the Welsh border, if you are thinking about succession, we would be glad to talk.
No rebrand, no call centre, no "your account has moved". The firms we buy keep trading under their own name with the team clients already know.
We buy practices because of the people in them. We support the existing team without overpowering the culture and values that make clients like the firm.
We are the buyer, not a middleman. Deal with us directly and there is no listing process, no sale fee and no percentage taken off your price.
Nothing reaches your staff, clients or the local grapevine until you decide it should. Early conversations are just that: conversations.
It keeps working. The name stays, the team stays, and the standards stay, because they are what we are buying. Our group includes ICAEW chartered, ACCA and AAT led firms, and every one of them still trades as itself. We add back-office support behind the reputation; we do not replace the reputation.
As confidential as these things can be made. There is no listing, no buyer database and no broker's mailshot; your enquiry is read by the group's three directors and nobody else, and we are happy to sign a mutual NDA before anything substantive is shared. Chester's professional community is small; we treat it that way.
That is our starting assumption, yes. A Chester practice's postcode and premises are part of what clients trust. Decisions about property are taken with the team, for the clients, not imposed for tidiness on a group org chart.
A few details are enough to start; share only what you're comfortable with. We reply personally within two working days, in complete confidence.
Your enquiry goes directly to the group's directors and nobody else. It is never passed to member firm staff or discussed outside that circle.
Call 0151 709 9524 and ask for Chris, or write to hello@stuartmcbain.com and mark it confidential. Both reach the same small circle.
We also buy practices in: the North West Liverpool Manchester the Wirral Southport St Helens Warrington Preston East Lancashire South Cheshire