Insider Media Limited

Grant Thornton is to make a partial return to the Nottingham market - just two years after closing its city centre office to relocate staff to Leicester. However, the city centre office will not return to its previous magnitude.

Speaking to Insider, Peter Bowler, partner at Grant Thornton in Leicester, said there were “no plans yet” to open a fully-serviced office in Nottingham.

The business advisers will base a team of ten corporate financiers in the city in a bid to become closer to clients in Nottingham.

Bowler said: “We’ve stayed in touch with our Nottingham clients and our corporate finance team has said that it’d find it useful to have a base in the city centre to be closer to them.”

Asked why Grant Thornton has changed its mind about a Nottingham base, Bowler added: “The reality is we want to exist in the markets we’re closest to. We felt that it would be easier to have a Nottingham presence rather than service clients from elsewhere.”

Grant Thornton first announced it was to close its Nottingham operation in November 2008 as part of a consolidation process. The move meant relocating 120 partners and staff to a new office in Leicester.

Then office managing partner for Grant Thornton, Garry Meakin, said at the time: “Rather than being scattered across the region, we can deliver this complex range of services far more effectively with teams of people working together in one facility.”

The move made five per cent of its East Midlands staff redundant.