A YORK legal firm is celebrating today after helping to clinch six corporate deals worth a total of £20 million in only two months.

The latest coup for Denison Till came about when fellow York business, the Shepherd Building Group, sought its help in the multi-million takeover of Homeseeker Homes Ltd.

Homeseeker Homes Ltd which, like Shepherd, is a private firm, is one of the UK's largest manufacturers of residential park homes. It employs more than 100 people at Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, and they have been assured by Shepherd that their jobs remain safe.

The acquisition, for an undisclosed sum, was a part of Shepherd Building Group's strategy to strengthen its position in the rapidly-growing park home sector.

About 250,000 people live on residential parks in the UK, particularly popular with retired people because they offer an attractive lifestyle and a lower-cost alternative to conventional bricks and mortar.

The group, based in Jockey Lane, Huntington, formed a new subsidiary this year called Advent Park & Leisure Homes to develop its own range of quality residential park homes and leisure lodges.

The first models will be shown at a six-day exhibition at The Lawns, near Hull, starting on September 4.

Meanwhile, Advent and Homeseeker, both part of Shepherd Building Group's manufacturing division, will remain separate entities, offering different but complementary park and leisure home ranges, but will be jointly headed up by Bill Clarke, a senior executive within the Shepherd Group.

Alan Rowlinson, operations director of Shepherd Building Group's manufacturing division, said: "Homeseeker's pedigree and expertise will make a valuable contribution to our existing presence in the park home and lodge sectors.

He said the two organisations could now combine purchase power and economies of scale as well as exploit the experience of his group in off-site construction techniques as well as in traditional house building to meet changing customers' demands.

"We have ambitious plans. The acquisition of Homeseeker makes us a leading manufacturer in the sector and we will be able to offer our staff in York and Wellingborough new learning and career opportunities," he said.

The deal was the latest of six corporate transactions, worth a total of £20 million, completed by Denison Till in York and North Yorkshire since the end of June, with more in the pipeline.

One of the most recent was a management buy in/management buy out (BIMBO) at the £3 million turnover Knaresborough-based Claro Precision Engineering led by Martin Doxey, former chief executive of Yorkshire University's Bioscience Investment Fund.

The Shepherd Building Group transaction was led by Andrew Lindsay and Alistair Duncan, partners in Denison Till's corporate department with help from the practice's property, employment and commercial departments.

Mr Lindsay, head of the corporate department, said he was delighted to have worked on a transaction of this scale. "It demonstrates yet again that Denison Till attracts work from the region's leading employers."

Updated: 10:20 Wednesday, August 25, 2004