Business Rescue Expert is providing vital guidance to companies nationwide from its Darlington base. PETER BARRON talks to managing director Eamonn Wall about how he grew into the business from unlikely beginnings…

ENTREPRENEUR Eamonn Wall throws his head back and laughs out loud as he remembers taking his first rather inelegant steps on the road to business success.

Wearing an ill-fitting suit he’d borrowed from his dad, along with a jazzy tie, he strode down Piccadilly and into one of the country’s largest accountancy practices, hoping to talk his way into his first job.

“With hindsight, I must have looked terrible, and they probably shouldn’t have let me through the door,” he admits.

But 25 years on, he’s proudly running a leading independent insolvency practice based in the North-East, specialising in business rescue advice, and with clients all over the country.

The company – established in Darlington town centre in January 2005 and recently rebranded as Business Rescue Expert – is experiencing a surge in demand in the wake of the pandemic, and looking to increase its 20-strong team as a result.

Eamonn credits his mother and father, Eddie and Theresa, for inspiring his entrepreneurial spirit and passing on the fundamental principles of hard work, fairness and customer service which are at the heart of his business.

Eddie had emigrated to London from his native Ireland when he was just 14 and was homeless for the first couple of years as he tried to find work. But by the time he was 18, he’d launched his own painting and decorating business and ended up employing around 20 people.

Eamonn was one of five children to be brought up in Chelsea, and together with his siblings, he worked in the family business from the age of 13, experiencing at first-hand how to treat employees.

“Dad always believed in paying us fairly, even though we were his children,” he recalls.

“He was also employing Polish immigrants at the time and, while other employers took advantage, he made sure they were also paid fairly. That sense of fairness stayed with me and it’s how I treat my own employees.

“Mum was just as big an inspiration because she was the driving force behind the business, keeping everything together behind the scenes. I was lucky to have them both.”

Eamonn always had a head for figures, so he decided to follow the accountancy route after his A-levels, and it was that ambition that led him to the door of Grant Thornton in his dad’s baggy suit in 1997.

“I kept being told I would never get my foot in the door without a degree, but I struck lucky,” he recalls. “I was just about to be kicked out of the reception when a lady from personnel overheard that I’d gone to a school that taught classics and that seemed to impress her.”

He was granted an interview to become a trainee, embraced the opportunity, and began to learn his trade in the insolvency department.

Three years later, he joined a fast-paced smaller company in search of a new challenge. A bigger fish in a smaller pond, his ability was easier to notice, and he was offered promotion into a management role in Manchester. Eamonn accepted the challenge to head north and, within four years, he was managing the entire 15-strong corporate insolvency team.

The next step was to move to a company in Bolton but, all the time, he had a growing sense that his future would be in running his own business. The crunch came when he sat next to the company’s owner at a dinner and heard how he had started his own business at 27.

“I was just about to turn 28 and I had this feeling that time was slipping by. Something clicked in my mind when I talked to him, and I knew I had to push on with going it alone,” he says.

Within six months, Eamonn had decided to leave Manchester and move to the North-East because he’d been doing a lot of work with companies in the region. He launched ICS North East, with his old boss at Bolton agreeing to take a 17 per cent stake.

Darlington was chosen as the location, offices were rented in Duke Street, and it was “all systems go”. The business took off well enough for Eamonn to buy back the 17 per cent shares, and the company started trading under the name Robson Scott Associates.

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It then began a transition from a traditional insolvency practice to a more digitally based business, and a content site was set up, answering questions for company directors, under the title “Business Rescue Expert”.

It proved so popular that, in the five years that followed, more and more clients came to know the company as Business Rescue Expert, so the decision was taken to rebrand from the start of this year.

The business continues to be run from Duke Street – in offices now owned by the company – and services include company voluntary arrangement, administration, liquidation, business viability review, individual voluntary arrangement, and insolvency moratorium.

Eamonn believes the company’s unique selling point is in being based in Darlington and nurturing the talents of local people.

“Our team has a wealth of experience, and we believe in showing them how they can progress in their careers. In return, we get a lot back in terms of commitment and loyalty,” he says.

Chris Horner is a shining example of that philosophy. He joined the business as a trainee 12 years ago, and has risen to become Insolvency Director, overseeing insolvency operations across the country.

Like all companies, Business Rescue Expert faced major challenges when the pandemic struck. Government support packages led to a huge drop in the number of corporate insolvencies, but the senior management team took a strategic decision to go on building for the future.

“Some practices in the sector were mothballed, but we took the view that we wanted to keep pushing through the crisis and keep staff active. We worked on the marketing side and improved our processes in the hope it would give us momentum when cases started to rise again,” explains Eamonn.

It proved to be a shrewd move. The business has seen steady growth since last October and is now in a position to recruit more staff.

“Our aim is to go on growing and building on our reputation for being a trusted, straight-talking service that takes time to understand what directors want, and coming up with solutions that are as uncomplicated as possible,” declares Eamonn.

As another sign of its commitment to the North-East, Business Rescue Expert is a Premier Partner in The Northern Echo’s Level Up campaign to promote the region’s case for greater Government investment.

“We know from our own experience that the people of the North-East are second to none when it comes to work ethic, passion and loyalty, so they deserve the best deal possible,” he adds.

“With the Treasury jobs coming to Darlington, and the work the Tees Valley Mayor, Ben Houchen, is doing to develop the Teesworks site on Teesside, these are exciting times, and we want to play a positive part.”

Eamonn Wall has climbed a fair way since he raided his dad’s wardrobe as a teenager to talk his way onto the bottom rung of the career ladder. And he’s clearly proved that he’s well suited to not only running his own business – but coming to the rescue of others.

  • To find out more about Business Rescue Expert, go to www.businessrescueexpert.co.uk
  • Any business interesting in becoming a partner of The Northern Echo’s Level Up campaign, please contact Pete Noble at pete.noble@localiq.co.uk

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