Canadian-listed property consultancy Altus Group has doubled its business rates practice in the UK through the £36.3m acquisition of CVS.
The new combined business will create the largest business rates advisory firm in the UK based on volume of appeals raised or served.
The business will be led by Alex Probyn, president of the UK business rates division at Altus Group. CVS chief executive Mark Rigby will stay on during the transition period before leaving the company.
Once united, the former fierce competitors will bring together more than 400 staff based in London, Manchester and Bristol.
Probyn said that ideally in the future he would like to bring all of the teams into one location, but nothing has been decided.
It is expected that the combined data of the two businesses will give them a competitive edge. “The issue is there’s a requirement to provide more information at the front end of the appeals process. “So, more compelling evidence has to be brought to bear at the beginning in order to find a way to negotiate and fix the levels of assessment. The more data that we have, the more predictive analysis and more work that we can do on that data, the more likely we are to add value the proposition and our clients in the long term.”
Rigby, who has led the business since 2010, said: “I’m obviously very proud of what we’ve achieved over the past eight years and we have arguably taken the business rates marketplace by storm and become a market leader in a short space of time.”
He added: “If you look at the sector, it sort of breaks itself down into the multidisciplinary practices which provide business rates as part of their general service offering, you’ve then got quite a lot of smaller niche specialist business rates firms.
“But you’ve got very few of the sort of scale of Altus on the one hand and CVS on the other and therefore what you do is you create this business ratings powerhouse that has the opportunity to really enhance the client service offering.”
Rigby, who is also president of Wasps rugby club, has not confirmed his leaving date but intends to step down from the business once the merger has completed. He said: “After a pause for breath I will be looking for new opportunities where I think I can delvier some new value.”
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