Meet the team
Meet the team...
Steve Butler - Senior Partner
Steve trained with a medium sized firm in Manchester before moving to Haines Watts in 1994. The move was prompted by his desire to become more integral to client's businesses. As Senior Partner, Steve is well placed to advise owner managed businesses on all financial planning matters.
Andrew Minifie - General Practice Partner
Andy has been a partner with Haines Watts since 1986. He opened the Tamworth Office in 1989 to serve a large part of the West Midlands and Staffordshire, and has gained a deep insight into the special needs of businesses in these areas. He advises on all aspects of their financial affairs, including strategic, taxation and succession planning.
Darren Barlow - General Practice Partner
Darren moved to Haines Watts in 1999, having previously worked for independent firms. He has acquired a depth of knowledge of the owner managed business sector across a broad range of industry types including manufacturing, service and construction.
Terri Halstead - Tax Partner
Terri joined Haines Watts in May 2005 to head up the Midlands Tax Team as Tax Partner.
With 17 years tax experience, the last 12 of which were spent with KPMG specialising in owner managed business, and high net worth individuals, Terri's wealth of knowledge and experience can ensure that clients get proactive advice tailored to their specific needs.
Terri is married with two young children and lives near Birmingham. In her spare time, she enjoys masters swimming and playing waterpolo.
Alan Gardner - Corporate Finance Partner
Alan spent his early career with KPMG Birmingham providing strategic advice and fund raising assistance for Midlands companies.
He went on to spend 12 years in executive management roles dealing with planning, fund raising and post acquisition management integration.
He has in depth experience of a wide range of manufacturing and distribution industries. Alan joined Haines Watts in 2003 specialising in fund raising, acquisitions and sales of owner managed businesses in the West Midlands.
Christopher Key - Partner, Transaction Services
Chris joined Haines Watts 2009 to build a specialist Transaction Services team offering buy-side, sell-side and refinancing financial due diligence reviews. The team is focused on smaller. sub £5m, deals in the Midlands, an area where TS specialists have not operated to date. Chris will be directly involved in planning, fieldwork and in clear commercial debriefs to key parties. Scoping of work is tailored to meet client needs - from a couple of days turnaround to a full review. This is a flexibly based, sensibly priced approach for today's market.
Chris qualified with a big 4 firm and has specialised in TS since, with a 3 year break working in Chicago US in the 1990s promoting Inward Investment to the UK. He established a nationally-based TS business stream for Robson Rhodes around 10 years ago and more recently led the Midlands TS team for Grant Thornton. Chris has led reviews on over a 100 deals with the value range mainly around £3m-10m but some involved cross border work and included a refinancing in excess of £200m. Sector involvement has been highly varied but majored on Engineering, Distribution, IT and retail.
Chris is married with 3 children, lives near Birmingham, enjoys running and reading but not at the same time and is a Director of a local not-for-profit Credit Union.