A significant (seven figure) investment has gone into Hutcheon Mearns’ new Aberdeen office – but that’s not the only exciting change to take place.
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The financial services firm has recently acquired and refurbished 2 Queens Road in Aberdeen. With the company growing to nearly 50 staff members, the new office will allow for the continuation of an aggressive growth plan.
Hutcheon Mearns opens new Aberdeen office during record-breaking year
Craig Hutcheon, founder of Hutcheon Mearns, says: “The new Aberdeen office will support us through our next phase of growth and gives us a prominent location as well. We were keen to invest in the local area. In fact, the building was previously owned by HSBC and Adam Maitland, the co-owner of Hutcheon Mearns, used to work there.
“We’ve now completed an extensive renovation project and we’re looking forward to welcoming our staff, clients and contacts to our new home.”
But Aberdeen is not the only Hutcheon Mearns office to change recently, with the company also increasing its presence in Edinburgh.
Meanwhile, there’s now a team of eight in Dundee, headed up by the new head of people solutions Lynsey Campbell, coupled with another move to a bigger office unit at Waters Edge.
Hutcheon Mearns will continue to invest in its offices to keep up with rapid growth.
This year the company hit 70 % revenue growth, with 40% growth the year before – and it’s already on target to have another record-breaking year by March 2024.
Refocusing on 3 core areas
Amazingly, this growth has also been achieved during a transformational year for the company – of which the Hutcheon Mearns new Aberdeen office is just one component.
The firm has also launched a new business (Hutcheon Mearns Real Estate), a new website and, internally, a realignment towards three core areas – people, deals and insights.
1. People: unique finance recruitment solutions
Craig explains: “The people side covers any resource requirement of a finance team, including our specialist interim and outsourcing teams.
“Essentially, someone can come to us and say ‘I think I need a new finance person, can you find me one?’.
“We can then find them someone for a specific project or role, or if they don’t want to employ someone, they can outsource to us. This is a hugely unique proposition for our clients and something we don’t believe is replicated elsewhere.”
2. Deals: a flexible corporate finance team
Craig says: “On the deals side, we have a rapidly growing corporate finance and transaction services team, which has been nominated as Corporate Finance Team of the Year in this year’s Scottish Business Insider Deal & Dealmakers Awards.
“Our approach to deals is highly flexible compared to the “old guard”, driven by our willingness to operate across the strategic spectrum of a company from early stage to late stage.”
3. Insights: using data and technology to inform businesses
Finally, the insights side of Hutcheon Mearns is all about technology automation and using data to inform businesses. Craig mentions that as the world looks to technological advancement, finance processes also need to adapt.
He explains: “How do we answer the questions that are keeping the finance directors and CFOs of this world up at night? Our insights division is built to improve efficiency and achieve better analysis, in order to get better answers and ultimately make informed decisions.”
Growth driven by innovation and problem solving
Hutcheon Mearns is continually looking at other ways to expand further into the professional services landscape – but it all comes down to problem solving.
Craig explains: “I set up Hutcheon Mearns based on past experience. I was working long hours in a Private Equity backed finance role and there was no one in the external services market who could really support me.
“So I came up with a market-leading recruitment solution with accounting knowledge at its heart: a qualified bank of interim specialists who could support businesses.
“Today, we continually look at the biggest problems our clients are facing and how we can set ourselves up to solve those problems.
“I never think that anything is perfect. There are always things we can do better and we need to constantly challenge the business. We’re only as good as our last project, so we continually strive for excellence.
“And yes, we’re always coming up with new ideas, but they’re always synergistic with our current business or its incremental change.
“We understand that we can’t grow a new part of our business overnight, it’s going to be smaller steps to get there.”
Providing more solutions for businesses
Some of the problems faced by business owners and finance teams may remain the same as when Craig first launched Hutcheon Mearns.
But now the firm is able offer a range of solutions designed to create and secure value for its clients.
Find out more about Hutcheon Mearns’ new Aberdeen office and the people, deals and insight services it offer.