The merger of two leading accountancy practices is a welcome boost to Bristol, the South West and beyond

The announcement follows the merger of the award-winning Bristol practice, Steele Financial with ourselves.

When asked about the merger, Ben Steele, now Managing Director of Streets Steele, said: “Having started Steele Financial only six years ago we have experienced significant growth and as such, in line with the advice we give our clients, we recognised the need to develop our practice to service growing demand. In particular it would seem our approach to run a true cloud based and digital accountancy practice along with providing clients a virtual finance office, certainly has made us an attractive proposition for many entrepreneurs and businesses alike.

Recognising the potential, along with the need for us to provide a greater breadth of services, we sought to join up with a larger practice who can not only support us but also support the needs of our clients, now and in the future. We are delighted to say we have found that in Streets Chartered Accountants.

We also believe that our clients will benefit in that the combined firm will be able to offer a wider range of services, including areas of specialist corporate and private client tax planning, international advice and personal financial planning.”

Looking at what the merger means to Streets, the firm’s Managing Partner, Paul Tutin, said: “We are delighted and excited to have Steele Financial become part of the Streets wide practice.  Ben and his team, including fellow Director Ryan Saward, are a truly inspiring practice and have earned an enviable reputation, not just in Bristol, but also in London and further afield, for their progressive approach and innovative use of technology to look after the needs of clients.   

Such an approach has seen them successfully grow a broad client base as well as particular sector specialisms in hospitality, food and drink and media and entertainment.

We are looking forward to working with Ben and his team on enhancing and developing a practice wide virtual finance office and our respective sector specialisms.

This recent merger comes on the back of an earlier one this year, with Streets Eadie Young in Banbury, Oxfordshire and this time last year Streets Whittles in Colchester, Essex. In line with our own growth aspirations, we also recently opened a new office in Burnley, Lancashire and are currently in talks with a number of practices around further mergers.

With Streets Steele in Bristol, we now have 23 offices from Burnley in the north to Brighton in the south.

Whilst many large firms have moved to more regional models, Streets remains committed to and focused on looking after clients that live, work and operate businesses in the local area. This approach is very much at the heart of our strategic focus for growth, which is likely to include further mergers of like-minded firms. Our aspiration is to become a top 20 UK practice by 2030.”