Ward Hadaway elevates Nik Tunley as head

Ward Hadaway has confirmed the appointment of corporate partner @wardhadaway.com as Head of Corporate following its merger with Teesside-based The Endeavour Partnership. This strategic move is designed to enhance Ward Hadaway's national corporate capabilities across Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, and Teesside, with further growth planned.

Nik specialises in mid-market mergers and acquisitions for owner-managed businesses and private equity investors and has been with The Endeavour Partnership since 2008. He led its corporate team for over a decade before taking on the role of finance partner. Some notable transactions under his leadership include the Growth Partner investment in the short-term rental property management company Host & Stay, the sale of Arbtech to Inflexion-backed Celnor (which was shortlisted for the North West Deal of the Year, £50m+), and Gi Group Holding’s acquisition of Encore Personnel in the UK.

Steven Petrie, Ward Hadaway’s Managing Partner, expressed confidence in Tunley’s abilities, saying “Nik has grown and led high-performing teams for many years. As a corporate lawyer, he combines calm deal leadership with commercial judgement that clients value on mid-market M&A. As a leader, he embodies the firm’s values of straightforward, respectful and ambitious. His appointment underlines our commitment to further building our corporate reach and maintaining the momentum we’ve built since the merger.”

Under Tunley’s leadership, the Ward Hadaway corporate team is poised to manage complex, multi-office transactions while advancing the firm’s growth plans, including expansion into Birmingham. His appointment signifies a continued focus on enhancing team performance and client services, following a series of senior hires and promotions within the firm that include partner-level and specialist appointments.

Ward Hadaway’s corporate team consistently ranks among the most active dealmakers outside London, recognised as one of the Top 10 firms nationally in the latest Experian MarketIQ league tables for completed M&A transactions across the UK.

Commenting on his appointment, Nik Tunley said “We are a highly capable corporate team with genuine strength in depth across our offices. The merger has added further scale and specialist expertise. My focus is to keep standards high, knit the teams even more closely together across locations and deepen our relationships with the adviser community. Our combined forces have a shared reputation for giving clients straight answers and conducting well-run deals, whatever the complexity, and so we have an extremely strong base on which to further extend the team, and the work we are doing for clients.

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