Scottish financial solutions provider Opulus has taken over Glasgow-based Nicolson Accountancy in its largest acquisition since launching at the end of last year.
Founded by Angus and Sue Nicolson more than 20 years ago, Nicolson Accountancy has offices in Glasgow, Kilmarnock and Stornoway and provides accountancy, tax and payroll services to more than 2,000 clients throughout the UK, Europe and the US. Its operations also include specialist Norwegian tax and payroll support.
The acquisition by Opulus has been funded by a seven-figure investment made by N4 Investments earlier this year, and start-up support from Virgin Money. Opulus said the deal will "significantly" expand its footprint as it continues to build its business, which provides a range of financial and operational solutions to small and medium-sized firms.
“This is a pivotal acquisition in the growth of Opulus Financial," chief executive Matthew Garstang said.
READ MORE: Accounting giant Azets to open new office in Stirling
"Nicolson Accountancy is a highly-regarded practice in the industry and both Angus and Sue bring a wealth of accountancy and tax experience. Their knowledge will be invaluable to the business going forward as we look to further expand our presence across Scotland.”
This is the fourth acquisition by Opulus since its inception, joining smaller deals for John Kerr & Co in Saltcoats, Alexander Marshall in Motherwell, and Craig Cleland in East Kilbride. The company now has 40 staff serving approximately 3,000 clients.
Angus and Sue Nicolson will continue working with Mr Garstang and the wider Opulus team to help strengthen the accountancy, tax and payroll element of the CFO (chief financial officer) solutions business.
Angus and Sue Nicolson added: “We are excited to be working with Matthew to expand the services offered to our clients and help build the wider practice.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here