Tax advisor to the stars flies flag for region

Jul 27 2009 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

From his plush office in Gateshead, Brad Thomas looks after the financial affairs of some of the world’s leading investment bankers, sports stars and celebrities. Peter McCusker finds out how he found success.

ALMOST a weekly business visitor to London, Brad Thomas wines and dines in some of the capital’s top restaurants professing to enjoying the "food and the atmosphere" in Langan’s Brasserie the best.

One week it might be lunch with a showbiz celebrity, the next a professional footballer and another a hedge fund manager or a leading stockbroker. All of these are found on a client list which is unusually high profile for a Gateshead accountant.

And it’s not just the top London eateries where Thomas can be found, it’s also the same in the top restaurants in the footballing hot spots of Liverpool and Manchester, as well as his home town of Newcastle.

While undertaking tax mitigation and personal finance work for some of the country’s highest earners, Thomas, a partner at independent Gateshead accountants RHK, says he is also flying the flag for the region.

“There is a perception in London that us North Easterners are thorough, hard working and will go that extra mile. London is a great place to work, it’s such a big pot and there are some very rich people down there.”

Thomas now looks after the personal financial affairs of dozens of high earning financiers, celebrities and sports stars, including one of the world’s top 10 golfers.

Client confidentiality prevents Thomas from divulging the names of any of his clients, but the testimonials in RHK’s promotional literature and the signed photographs and football shirts which adorn the company’s offices on Coburg Street, Gateshead, near the council offices, tell their own story.

Former Sunderland footballer and Irish international Kevin Kilbane says: “Bradley and RHK have been a massive help to me by dealing with my tax issues quickly and efficiently and saving me money along the way. Great help and great service.”

Fabulous Flournoy, the head coach and player for Newcastle Eagles basketball team adds: “The services I receive from Bradley Thomas at RHK – from tax advice to personal and business financial planning allow me to focus on my true priorities – winning basketball games. Basically, Bradley takes time to understand my needs and help me win off the court.”

And former Middlesbrough and England football coach Steve Harrison says: “Bradley has not only provided a very professional service, he also has a straightforward and unpretentious approach which, personally speaking, I find very reassuring.”

“It’s all about building good relationships, that’s the key to what I do. A certain level of expertise is expected, but people also want to get on with the person they are dealing with,” says Thomas modestly.

It’s all a far cry from where he began his career after leaving school in Wideopen in 1978. Following his A levels, he joined law firm Dickinson Dees in Newcastle.

He says he enjoyed law, with litigation work being of particular appeal. As he became more involved in commercial law he began to take an interest in tax and left to join accountants Deloitte Haskins and Sells.

His career has followed that tax and personal finance route ever since, and on joining Walker Johnston in 1990, he helped establish tax service and started to work on the tax affairs of high net worth individuals.

This involved lots of networking, helping Thomas develop his relationship-building skills.

Thomas and his wife of 22 years, Susan, were looking to start a family and he was getting itchy feet, and he joined his current employers.

It was during the football boom of the mid-to-late 1990s that Thomas got his break into the world of high-flying football stars.

He explains: “I was working with a radio and TV personality in the North East who went on to become a player’s liaison officer at one of the region’s premiership clubs. “He introduced me to some of the players and many of the foreign stars were concerned by the levels of tax they were paying.

“It was a case of ‘ooh, why is all this money going to the taxman?’ and it basically snowballed from there.

“I spent a lot of time looking into tax cases involving sports people and as word got round, my network of contacts spread across the country.

“We now have a client who is one of the top ten golfers in the world, there are Premiership managers and hedge fund managers.

“Invariably I am seen as a white knight on a charger and one of the questions I am often asked is where is the catch?”