A SOLICITOR who will this year take home more than £10m has unveiled plans to grow his business dramatically.
Jeff Winn, the founder and managing director of personal injury specialist law firm Winn Solicitors, is in line for a £10m pay packet at the end of the financial year in April.
Now he has said he is in negotiations with two private investors who are planning to plough “huge sums” into the firm and grow the business by a further 50%.
Winn, who 15 years ago was a partner in the law firm Singleton Winn, set up his Tyneside- based company 10 years ago after a motorist crashed into the back of his Jaguar.
Frustrated by the losses he incurred from insurers, he decided to set up his own legal practice which would specialising in claiming directly from those at fault.
In the decade that has elapsed, the 47-year-old has grown a successful business with two sites in the North East. The first is located on the site of an ex-supermarket in Byker and stretches out to 22,000sq ft while the second is nearby on Heaton Road, Heaton.
Winn said: “There were eight of us 10 years ago and now we have 280 people working for us. They are saying it’s the fastest organic growth a law firm has had. It’s catapulted us into the top 200 law firms in the UK.
“We’ve got a very efficient system of lawyers. We’ve got a very fast and efficient service and we are going through 2,000 claims a month but these are only people who have been crashed in to. It’s about getting them back into a position they were in previously.”
Winn, originally from Morpeth, Northumberland, but now living in Jesmond, Newcastle, expects the company will generate profits of £12.1m for the 2012/13 year, while turnover will hit £32.8m. In the year ending March 2013, turnover is expected to top £39m.
Last night Winn, who took home £4.62m last year, said he was trying to attract investors that would help his business grow even further.
He said: “We are in discussions with two private equity houses with the potential to invest a very large sum so we can grow even faster. We could grow by 40% or 50% if we get it absolutely right and that could come through about July time.”
Winn said North East businesses would have to find a niche in the market and specialise in law if they were to follow in his footsteps.
