About Us

Nicols + Brien is a specialised Insolvency Practice. It was formed in October 1998.

Both Steve Nicols (Partner), and Richard Brien (Senior Manager) have worked together at senior  levels in specialist insolvency firms for some 28 years.

The Practice concentrates its efforts on assisting other professionals and business advisers to provide practical, meaningful and cost effective solutions to their clients’ Insolvency problems. This involves pro-active involvement of either Steve or Richard from initial advice, to conclusion of any matter.

Our Firms mission is to assist clients of other professionals to deal with Insolvency issues before they become fatal to the business operations of the client. The analogy of a “Business Doctor” has been widely used. It is probably a good analogy as a thorough review of a situation together with some hard-nosed decisions is sometimes all a business needs to regain its former vitality.

More often than not, however, a business in trouble only seeks assistance from its business advisers when things are potentially terminal. It is thus an unfortunate fact that our role may only encompass a formal Insolvency Administration.   Like most things in life timing is everything.

The size of the practice is ideally suited for small to medium size Administrations with a strong emphasis on trade-on and investigative skills. We have 12 staff. All Professional Staff have degrees in Commerce or Law and update their skills with current training and research. Nearly all staff have been with us for 10 years or more. This latter aspect has been advantageous to the practice in that it gives us a depth of talent and experience to handle a wide range of business situations.

To assist other professionals in Legal and Accounting practices we are available at call to provide advice or assistance in handling a client’s insolvency problem.

The first meeting is at “No Charge”.

We have also developed various information papers on relevant aspects of Insolvency for professionals to use both for their own information, and to help in explaining problems to clients.  Whilst copies of these papers are available on request we recommend giving us a call to have a chat about any particular issues

As Insolvency Specialists, we do not undertake any tax or general accounting work. This enables us to focus our energies in the Business Recovery and Insolvency areas.