The Gloucestershire offices of a law firm are now part of a major legal business valued at more than £100 million.

Legal and professional services firm Knights Group Holdings, which has offices at Festival House in Cheltenham, is now a plc trading on the Alternative Investment Market.

It is a move made possible by the skills of RSM's capital markets team and raised some £50 million -£20m for shareholders and £30m for the company - and valued the company at £103.5m.

Knights, which employs 430 people at its offices in Cheltenham, Chester, Derby, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Oxford and Wilmslow is one of the UK's top 100 largest law firms by revenue.

Diane Craig, head of RSM's capital markets team said: "Knights has experienced significant growth over the last few years and today's listing will enable the group to continue its growth both organically and through investment.

"While listing is not the right course of action for all firms, there has recently been an increasing interest among law firms in the benefits of going public.

"Given the success of recent legal services IPOs, we anticipate that we'll see more firms taking this route in the near future."

On admission to AIM Knights will also complete its acquisition of business law firm Turner Parkinson LLP which will add a further office in Manchester and an additional 63 employees.

In 2012, the firm moved from a traditional partnership model to a corporate structure, which the directors believed had been a key contributor to the business's recent profitable growth.

In the three years to April 30, 2018, it generated compound annual growth in revenue and adjusted operating profit of 31.4 per cent. and 25 per cent respectively.

The admission of Knights marks the fifth law firm to list on AIM and the second so far this year.

The team for the Knights transaction was led by Diane Craig, with support from Matt Cowie, John More as well as the Stoke audit team led by Anne Lakin.

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