An insight into the years 1980 – 2016 of Bevan & Buckland Accountants by Cuan O’Shea.
The 1980s saw a number of developments undertaken by the firm that are still important in the 2020s. First, in 1983, the Partners purchased a small block of fees in Pembroke. This became the base of the Pembroke office and was initially managed by Charles Clewett, who travelled to Pembroke a couple of days a week before permanently transferring to live in Pembrokeshire in the mid-80s.
Secondly, the Swansea office decided to restart training chartered accountants, who had been in abeyance for a number of years. The firm took the first trainee in September 1985, Johnathan Evans, who qualified at first attempts in every exam by 1989. He was followed in September 1986 by Alison Vickers, of whom we will hear more of later.
In November 1985, the firm Frank C Bevan & Co. merged with another long-established firm in Swansea, Sidney H Buckland & Co, and the two partners in Sidney H Buckland, John Jeremy and Wilf Jones, became Partners in the newly named firm of Frank C Bevan & Buckland. The cost of ink to write this name on audit and accounting reports soon meant that the name was shortened to Bevan & Buckland. In May 1987, the firm merged with a practice in Haverfordwest. Willmott Brand, who owned the practice, became a partner in Bevan & Buckland, which now meant that the firm covered an area from Swansea to West Wales. In addition, Adrian Richards also started helping out in the Haverfordwest office, again for a couple of days a week.
In September 1985, Cuan O’Shea joined an international firm and became a partner in Bevan & Buckland in May 1987.
In May 1987, the firm left the Swansea Docks area. It moved from Albion Chambers, which was near the old Evening Post building (which was next to what is now Morgan’s Hotel), to Russell House, just off the traditional professional practice area of Walter Road. The move was a significant investment by the partners and gave the firm plenty of space to grow in numbers. It had that essential element at that time: onsite car parking. Thus, from September 1985 to December 1987, the firm grew from 3 partners, Peter Muxworthy, Charles Clewett and Adrian Richards, to 7 Partners with three offices in Swansea, Pembroke and Haverfordwest.
As we will see, the acquisition/merger with other practices did change the nature of the firm from a local Swansea practice to a regional/sub-regional firm with all the advantages and challenges such growth brings. One of the main changes in the Swansea office was the change in the nature of clients. Previously, prior to the merger with Sidney H Buckland, the firm had a much larger bias towards agricultural and shipping clients. Whilst Sidney H Buckland was a smaller firm, it also had a number of larger commercial clients, which began to change the nature of the firm. It also had one client, Swansea Housing Association, as it was then called, which became the basis of a significant specialism in the firm over the next 30 years. By 2020, the firm had 19 Housing Associations that it audited, all starting from the one firm initially acquired by the merger.
In addition, the firm had a number of Solicitor’s practices as clients. With the expertise of Peter Muxworthy, this began to become a significant specialism of the firm over the next couple of decades.
Another development within the firm during the 80’s was the need to invest in technology. In the early years of the merger between Frank C Bevan and Sidney H Buckland, the firm benefited greatly from the knowledge of John Jeremy, one of the partners from Sidney H Buckland, who was very keen to push this side of the practice. In particular, he developed a cashflow forecast programme years before the Sage programme became all-powerful. The cashflow model was very robust and a major selling point with the Banks to whom we were beginning to market our services to.
Another significant investment made by the firm after moving to Russell House was the decision to start a financial services department which Bernard Stanton ran. Bernard had previously worked for an insurance company and, when asked if he wanted to join us, was keen to do so. Whilst the firm regularly received commissions for introducing clients to Insurance companies for pensions and life insurance, it was a major initiative to have a dedicated person in-house to do this work.
The growth of the firm at this time meant that by 1989, the partners had to learn more non-accounting skills. This lesson still applies to the present day. In particular, marketing had to be learnt. It should be remembered that Chartered Accountants were not allowed to advertise their wares in newspapers until the early 1980s (the Internet did not exist at this time).
The way to market yourself was to join clubs and societies, e.g., Rotary, Round Table, Rugby/Football Clubs, etc. Some viewed approaching potential clients directly with suspicion, and some saw it as unethical. This view has not disappeared up to the present day.
However, by the late 1980s, the firm was beginning to adopt various marketing strategies, such as:
- entertaining bank managers and solicitors regular
- developing specialisms, especially in the legal profession and financial services essentially trying to tell potential customers what we can do.
To do this, the partners, in particular, needed to be trained to give presentations and develop new businesses. Courses run by the Institute of Chartered Accountants were beneficial for Partners at this time and probably still have a benefit to this day. They were very influential in ensuring that the firm developed a greater marketing focus throughout the firm.
The changes in partnership continued throughout the 1990s. Willmott Brand, the partner in Haverfordwest, retired in 1991, and he was replaced by Stuart Warner, an Oxford graduate, who then ran the Haverfordwest office until 2001. Stuart’s appointment as Partner meant that Adrian Richards could then come back to Swansea to further develop work within the Swansea office. Again, in 1990, there was a significant boost to the firm when the firm in Swansea acquired a small block of fees from a local practitioner, Barry Page. Although the value of fees was quite small, there were a sizeable number of local Charities. This batch of Charities was an introduction to the Profit sector and, along with a significant investment in training and marketing, has now enabled the firm 2020s to be one of the significant Charity sector accountants in South Wales, with clients throughout South Wales area and even into the West of England. We now act for over 75 Not for Profit clients.
So, from being a local Swansea firm at the start of 1985, by the mid-1990s, the firm was operating throughout the M4 corridor from Newport Gwent to Newport Pembrokeshire.
One area of expertise where the firm did not have a presence was insolvency. This was remedied when Alun Evans, an Insolvency Practitioner, joined the firm in November 1992 and became a partner in the Haverfordwest office on August 1, 1995. Alun started in the Pembroke office and then ultimately transferred to work alongside Stuart Warner in Haverfordwest.
Another area of work that we felt we could improve on was more specialised tax work, and again, to this end, we recruited Huw Evans as a tax partner on January 1, 1994. Huw joined from an international accounting practice, having previously worked in Cardiff and Swansea. However, more importantly, he had first been an Inspector of Taxes and was the first partner in the firm not to have been a qualified Chartered Accountant. Again, this was a sign of widening horizons within the firm.
The continuing growth of fees meant a need to appoint a further audit/accounting partner in Swansea. On May 1 1997, Alison Vickers, who had joined us as a trainee accountant 11 years earlier, became a partner. Again, the mix of homegrown partners and people who had joined from other firms was beginning to be recognised as a strength of the firm in its mission. From day one, Alison has brought a significant amount of work into the firm and enabled us to increase the firm’s profile in a number of areas, particularly charities, solicitors and general commercial clients. After the recession of the early 1990s, there was a period of continuing good growth for the firm. Again, building on the decisions made in the 1980s, the headcount increased every year, which really showed the wisdom of moving to much larger premises at Russell House.
One major initiative in the late 1990s was the project to put a computer on every person’s desk in the firm, including the Partners. This was probably a more significant step than the invention of the biro pen (see earlier in the firm history). The project was led by John Jeremy, helped by Huw Evans and our newly appointed IT manager, Ian Thomas. This was another example of the firm being prepared to invest for the future.
The next big undertaking for the firm was managing the retirement of the original Partners of Frank C Bevan and Sidney H Buckland, i.e., Peter Muxworthy, Charles Clewett, Adrian Richards, and John Jeremy.
Adrian Richards retired in 1995 to develop a long-standing interest in the Caravan business. John Jeremy retired in 2000. Charles Clewett, who had moved to Pembrokeshire in the late 1980s, undertook a major growth project in Pembrokeshire, which saw the firm acquire new premises at Castle Chambers in 1991. The firm in Pembroke grew significantly during the 1990s. Charles decided to retire in 2001.
Finally, Peter Muxworthy, who was the firm’s managing partner from 1975 to 1995, retired as a Partner in 2001. He continues as a consultant.
With Charles Clewett’s retirement from the Pembroke office of Bevan & Buckland in 2001, he needed to be replaced in that office. He was succeeded by Caroline Wheeler, who was another person who had joined us as a trainee accountant in the Haverfordwest office. Caroline’s back story is interesting in the sense that she joined the Haverfordwest office as a mother of 4 children and started as an accounting technician trainee. She successfully passed these exams and then, encouraged by Stuart Warner, went on to qualify as a chartered accountant. Finally, she became a Partner in the firm on December 1 2001. Her success in the firm enabled her to win the Returner of the Year award at the Welsh Woman of the Year Awards in 1998. Stuart Warner, a partner in Haverfordwest, left the firm in 2001 to develop a consultancy practice, and Huw Evans also left the firm in 2004 to participate in a Swedish Property Investment Scheme.
Huw Evans’s retirement meant we needed to recruit a new Tax Partner. Huw was replaced by Jeanette McLlelan, who joined us from the International firm PWC in Swansea. Jeanette brought a good mix of taxation and accounts experience to the firm. At the time Jeanette joined us, we were probably one of the few firms in the UK with a 50/50 split of female and male partners. This was pretty much unheard of in South Wales for the size of the firm.
The first decade of the 21st Century saw the continuing growth in the firm, which certainly meant an increase in the number of staff, which, as mentioned earlier, brought challenges. Also, by the end of the decade, we were beginning to outgrow the office at Russell House. In particular, car parking, its extraordinary advantage, was now becoming a problem. Our search for new offices took a number of years, partly because very few people were building offices in Swansea and because the 2008 financial crash meant that development and finance became difficult. However, in September 2009, the firm acquired new premises at Langdon House and moved into the offices in late March 2010. At the same time, on May 1 2010, Harri Lloyd Davies became a Partner in the firm. Harri was another partner who had qualified with us and was now successful in becoming a partner.
Harri was under 30 when he became a partner and brought new ideas and ways of working to the firm. In 2013, we saw the retirement of Bernard Stanton from the firm’s financial services department. Also, in 2013, Paul Arnold joined the firm as a Tax Partner. Paul had previously worked for a couple of International firms, and when he joined us, he specialised in Research and Development claims. Again, this proved to be a very successful investment by the firm. In April 2013, Jeanette McLellan decided to retire from the firm and in late 2016, Cuan O’Shea retired as Managing Partner. Alison Vickers, who started as a trainee in 1986, became the managing partner in 2016. Her first appointment was to recruit Matthew Denney as a tax partner, specialising in trusts.
