A chance meeting resulting in marriage, a business turning over more than £2 million with 40 employees leads to new offices in Stafford.
The Mayor and Mayoress of Stafford will officially open the doors to the new offices of award-winning financial services group Dunham McCarthy on Friday.
The business, formerly based at Dunston Business Village, has moved into an early Edwardian 5,000 sq ft property in Wolverhampton Road, just minutes from the town centre.
The purchase was then followed by a £300,000 fit-out, and in typical energetic Dunham McCarthy style, the whole project took just five months from start to finish.
The old-world exterior houses a dynamic interior, with bright open plan spaces and a mix of interior textures colours and finishes. It makes a perfect new base for Dunham McCarthy to welcome clients and to grow and develop as a business.
The business
The Estate Planning, Trust, Insurance, Wills and Mortgage business was founded in 2011 by husband-and-wife team Alex Clansey and Nicola McKenzie.
Nicola, who heads up the mortgage division and has regularly been seen giving mortgage advice on daytime TV, met Alex when he worked for a Midlands Estate Agency as a Mortgage and Estate Planner.
“I met Alex through business and we started dating shortly afterwards. I never would have guessed that we would go on to set up Dunham McCarthy and be married,” she says.
Over the years, Dunham McCarthy – with its ability to apply fresh thinking to an old industry – has gone from strength to strength and now employs 40 staff. It recently won a coveted Legal and General award for service excellence, beating stiff, longer established competition from all over the UK.
Secret to success
Alex explains: “We have an excellent team which we lead by example.
“Nicola and I are very much hands on and work long hours. We continually strive to offer the highest levels of service and flexibility and with this in mind, we’re always developing the extent of our service with the express aim of creating a convenient ‘one-stop-shop’ approach for all one’s financial requirements – backed by high levels of knowledge and expertise.”
Two years ago, mylastwill.co.uk was launched, an online Will writing service supported by live, real time assistance from professional will writers.
This unique approach to online will writing complements the estate planning and management side of the business, demonstrating Alex and Nicola’s aim to create a ‘one-stop-shop’ approach to their business.
Future Plans
Future plans not only include the recruitment of further staff, but also, the development of further allied subsidiaries.
It is hoped these will enable Dunham McCarthy Group to handle trusts, tax and probate as well as a pensions and investments. There’s even talk of legal and financial software development business, utilising the technology and areas of expertise that Dunham McCarthy has developed for its own use.
