UHY Hacker Young has appointed Jayne Fotheringham as audit partner and Colin Radmore as accounting and business services manager in its Nottingham office, a move that matters broadly because it strengthens the office's leadership as it integrates into Affinia's wider platform, and matters specifically to accountancy professionals because Fotheringham joins from Cooper Parry, a rival PE-backed East Midlands accountancy group, showing senior audit talent now moving directly between competing consolidators in the same region.

UHY Hacker Young's Nottingham, London and Brighton offices merged with advisory group Affinia earlier this year, forming a 160 million pound business employing 1,600 staff; Affinia is itself backed by private equity firm RedBird Capital Partners.

Cooper Parry is a Derby-headquartered accountancy and business advisory group backed by US private equity firm Lee Equity Partners since 2024, having grown turnover fourfold to 180 million pounds through more than a dozen acquisitions across audit, tax, financial planning and technology consulting.

Fotheringham spent 16 years at Cooper Parry advising private equity-backed and owner-managed businesses across the East Midlands before joining UHY, while Radmore joins to manage business advisory clients after a career representing Great Britain in competitive canoeing and coaching the Irish, Ugandan and British Paralympic teams.

Fotheringham's move is notable less for who she is than for where she came from. Cooper Parry has spent recent years absorbing regional firms of its own, including Haines Watts London and UHY Manchester, positioning it as a direct competitor to Affinia's UHY Nottingham business for both clients and staff across the same East Midlands market.

That dynamic gives the region a genuine two-platform contest: both Cooper Parry and Affinia are private equity-backed consolidators actively acquiring and hiring in overlapping territory, rather than one dominant buyer facing a field of independent practices.

For the sector, senior audit talent moving directly between rival PE-backed platforms signals a regional market mature enough that experienced partners can weigh competing offers, not simply choose between staying independent or joining a single consolidator.

Source: Accountancy Today / Insider Media