Sandisons: Medical accountancy specialist acquired by Azets

Tell me about the history of Sandisons?

Broom: We were founded back in 1978, at the time it was a partnership and formed specifically to deal with medical clients, GPs, NHS consultants, and other medical businesses at the time. That partnership continued until 2004 when we became a limited company. Over the years, we have grown gradually and organically, back in the 1970/80s, there were a handful of staff, maybe three or four, and now we are up to around 50 people. That entire growth has come purely from client recommendation.

Geographically, we have grown from dealing mainly with Dorset and Hampshire, which is our home turf, now we span to South Wales, Devon, Wiltshire, as far as Kent and into London now.  We service everything from the one office in Blandford, travelling to clients, but that’s easier now because of technology.

What client based does Sandisons have?

Broom: Around 80% of our clients are either GPs, the practices they work in, and NHS consultants. The NHS goes through various changes all the time, the latest change is delivering medical services, a Primary Care Network (PCN), and we act for around 25-30 of them. South Dorset is served by one PCN, so it’s a growing organisation. The growth for us is in the medical sector.  

The NHS never becomes easier, it becomes more complicated. Through the Covid-19 pandemic, that in itself brought up additional complications for the doctors in terms of the services they were offering, and the funding form the NHS comes through the accounting side as well. This all means more work for the advisor.

We do have other clients as well, the other 20% is the usual builders, developers, and plumbers. 

What led to the acquisition?

Broom: We are quite well known in this industry; we have had various other firms approach us either to merge or take us over and we have always gotten to a certain point and decided it wasn’t the right time or deal for us. But we have succession issues like many other businesses, where you have three or four people running it, we needed someone to take over. We knew we needed to find succession to this business, we were in the process of doing that and Azets came knocking.

If we were going to be taken over, there had to be certain preconditions, things we were keen on, we had to make sure that our staff were looked after as we have been in this office for a long time and people that have worked for us for 30 years. We had to make sure that whoever we decided to move with understood that our client relationship is long-term. The way Azets works is very much in line with the way we work, that the clients come first.

What was so desirable about Sandisons?

Fearnley: We decided we wanted to focus on certain sectors, and those sectors face similar issues that are usually nationwide and are complex and have a barrier to service, and I think, particularly in the medical space, there is an increase in complexity and funding has meant that the number of GP practices are reducing whilst the size and complexity is increasing, and we see that as a long-term trend. We recognise that the number of specialist people in the market is really limited, there are firms that do some medical servicing, but it’ll only be 20% of their client base, which means you aren’t a specialist, it means you don’t really understand the complex issues.

Whereas Sandisons has medical as 80% of its client base. What struck us about the firm is its depth of expertise and reputation that it had in the marketplace and that they were growing year on year. It is facing the same issues other businesses face, access to staff is increasingly difficult and investment into technology, which for SME businesses can be a drain on the shareholder partner group.

It also benefits Azets as it’s in an area where we don’t have an office, so it gives us a geographical presence and it helps us there. We saw a good opportunity to leverage our medical sector and benefit from the practice Sandisons has developed.

What are the benefits Sandisons gets from this acquisition?

Broom: We have always felt that the marketplace is far bigger than we are, meaning there is a lot of potential for growth. But for us, as a smaller company, it’s difficult to see it and to see how we can help and develop clients. When Azets approached us, we could see that they had the size and scale to leverage what we do and expand that across other parts of the country. When you work with hard working medical professionals, if you can support them professionally, it’s a very rewarding part of our job. We always wanted to have that growth, but we have struggled to do it from where we are.

What we wanted to do is to be able to invest in stuff and being part of Azets gives us this opportunity. They’ve got the financial ability to invest in new systems and staff that we cannot do on our own. For us, it’s going to be a fantastic bonus, but we also have access to things Azets already possesses, such as corporate finance and wealth management which is really beneficial to the doctors and the sector as a whole.

Is expanding your offering across the country the goal for Azets?

Fearnley: Absolutely. Our goal is to be the number of medical specialist accountancy providers across the country. We are in a good position already but over the coming month and years we want to endeavour to be better. 

My brother is a GP and is always complaining about the issues that they face, not just dealing with the clients, the amount of work they do in the background and the financial element is just some of the issues, if we can take away some of the strain from them and other healthcare professionals then they can focus on doing their jobs. It’s a really attractive and exciting opportunity to work with Sandisons.