Managing partners of small independent practices have always operated under duress. Like the owner-managed businesses they serve, they need to keep a weather eye out for economic storms, as well as manage staff, keep predatory competitors at bay and secure a viable exit for themselves.

Doing all that ­ and keeping their practice independent and healthy ­ is an achievement to shout about, particularly if you can secure impressive growth along the way, without succumbing to the expansionist imperatives of the consolidators or bigger mid-tier firms.

So it’s greatly to Stanley Baskin’s credit that he can approach retirement in the knowledge that the firm he joined in 1976 has grown steadily ­ by acquisition and by acumen. Over the past few years, Haslers in Loughton, Essex, has marched steadily up the league table, from a position just outside the top 60 five years ago, to number 36 in the Accountancy Age Top 50 for 2007. Not bad for a firm that 30 years ago had two partners, six staff and operated from three small rooms.

Baskin, together with Michael Gould, the other equity partner at the time and these days lead corporate finance partner at the firm, took inspiration for the kind of firm they wanted Haslers to become from a visit to the US in 1986.

They lined up meetings with accountants, lawyers and bankers around New York, Boston and Philadelphia.

‘It gave us a good insight,’ he says. ‘We saw big firms and small firms, and the firms that we were most impressed with were about the size we are now: ten to 20 partners and 100 to 200 staff. Sole practitioners seemed to be running themselves ragged. As for the big firms, we knew that wasn’t for us, so we came back with the game plan of getting ourselves to the kind of size we are now.’

Dogged growth

Apart from a slow patch in the mid 1990s, which Baskin puts down to having no insolvency practice in a time of recession, the growth has been on a steady upward path. Haslers is ­ or was - the small firm that did: growing by doggedly acquiring clients ­ another small firm called Warner Bearman ­ and expanding by employing like-minded people. The next stage, says Baskin, is to expand into the City. And, although he’s due to retire soon, for him that move will mark the culmination of 30 years building Haslers into a full-service practice with clout.

Baskin has small-firm training. He joined a local firm in Walthamstow, London at 18 and went through a five-year articleship before deciding that he needed to test out life in one of the big firms. He qualified in 1966 and joined Cooper Brothers, where he spent ten years.

Big-firm life meant big company audits. Baskin spent three-and-a-half of those ten years in the firm’s Southampton office working on accounts such as Cunard, which had moved its accounting function from Liverpool, and the Automobile Association in Basingstoke. The lack of an obvious career path in the Southampton office prompted a move back to London, where he ran a team handling the audits for the likes of British Steel and Babcock and Wilcox.

Looking at friends who were self-employed in the mid-1970s caused Baskin to change direction again. ‘I wanted to be a partner who mattered rather than one of several dozen,’ he says.

With the support of partners at Coopers, Baskin began his hunt for a leading role in a smaller practice. In 1976 he approached a two-partner firm based in Woodford Green ­ Haslers. The founding partner Harry Hasler was coming up for retirement. Baskin joined Gould formally as a partner in 1977.

The firm moved to its present location in Loughton in 2005. Today, the firm has 17 partners and 110 staff. And it’s heading for another period of rapid4 change. ‘We are coming up to a point where a number of partners will be retiring ­ including me.’ says Baskin.

So another recruitment drive is on the cards. And, as usual, Haslers faces all the challenges in the war for talent that smaller firms have to square up to. With a couple of exceptions Baskin has promoted from within and the firm has had some success with home-grown talent. Promotion to that sort of level is not a given, however. So what are his prerequisites for partnership?

‘As far as partners go, it’s got to be their judgment. Yes, you expect partners to be good technically, but if they can’t exercise judgement as to how to use that technical expertise, or perhaps they might think they know more than they do, they’re not going to be a good fit. You need people you can rely on; you are putting your financial life in their hands.’

At your service

The practice’s full-service approach has undoubtedly helped it to grow. Haslers’ corporate finance team, says Baskin, has really developed because partners and client teams seek to give the fullest range of advice they can.

He is also a fully paid-up supporter of brand building and marketing for smaller firms. The approach yields bigger and better clients, he says. ‘Marketing has raised our brand awareness,’ he says. When we get someone referred to us, we find our name is generally known and that helps that process quite a lot.

The firm has always been based on the London/Essex border, but looks inwards towards Docklands and the City for business, rather than out to East Anglia. There’s a lot of good industry all along the Thames Gateway from Tower Bridge through Canary Wharf, Barking and Dagenham up to Rainham. In fact, the firm bought a property in Docklands in 1986 as a potential office. ‘We’ve never occupied it, but we’ve rented it out since then, so I’ve been a keen observer of the Docklands scene for a long time. And yes, it’s been a most amazing regeneration project. From the 70s and early 80s when it was almost derelict, now there is a tremendous buzz.’

Nevertheless, the firm’s next likely move will be to open in the City. Apart from a corporate finance division, the firm’s forensic department needs a base in the square mile to extend its work in litigation support, dispute resolution and valuations. The firm also has a new insolvency department. Each of those divisions, says Baskin, attracts work from the City.

The firm is investigating mergers or acquisitions with like-minded firms as its first choice. ‘If we can’t find one, we will open an office from scratch, which we don’t really want to do. It’s much better to find an established business, because we want people as well. We know we’ve got a number of partners coming up for retirement and we can’t just lose them and take on a lot more fees. We’re looking for people in their thirties and forties who can take up the baton and move forward.’

Baskin has a deadline in mind. ‘I would hope we would be pretty well advanced with this by the end of the year. My unofficial retirement date is 1 January,’ he says. He’ll be succeeded by Carl Hansen, who joined the firm as practice director in August.

And he’s looking for quality over size. ‘The top line is one thing, but it’s the bottom line that interests accountants. No business can stand still. If you try and stand still you go backwards. We’ve got no particular target to be a top 20 firm in five years, nor to be a national or international firm. We’re doing it step by step.’

If past performance is anything to go by, this might just be a top 20 firm in years to come.

To read the CLIENT'S VIEW, click on the next page