Rapleys acquires Mellersh & Harding as it continues strategic growth

Published in on 15 July 2024

Strategic property consultancy Rapleys has acquired West End specialist agency Mellersh & Harding as it continues to deliver on its growth ambitions.

The Mellersh & Harding team will join Rapleys’ Commercial division adding strength across its Office Agency, Investment, Property Management and Lease Advisory service lines. 

Rapleys has been growing strategically over the last two years with this latest merger, the fifth acquisition in two years, following the onboarding of planning consultants CSJ in 2022, commercial and portfolios specialist Aston Rose and residential consulting specialist s106 Affordable Housing – both in 2023 – and building consultancy specialist Bluebrick earlier in 2024.

Mellersh & Harding is a well-respected multi-disciplinary commercial property consultancy offering a wide range of expertise to its broad client base. The 122-year-old Partnership is well known for its focus on Central London offices and its expertise in the West End and St James submarket. Other core disciplines include Property Management, Investment, and Lease Advisory for clients throughout London and the UK. Mellersh & Harding will retain its name and trading style whilst benefiting from being a Rapleys business.

Mellersh & Harding’s clients include institutions, property companies, corporates, and high net worth individuals, such as Emirates, Fever-Tree, Aspect Capital, National Friendly, KF Asset Management, Crafts Council and Chatham House (RIIA), amongst others.

David Mundy, partner at Mellersh & Harding, said “We welcome this exciting opportunity to bring our well-respected firm and our Central London expertise into the Rapleys business. Our two firms share similar values to provide best in class advice to clients and I know that our collaboration and the expansion of service lines will continue to achieve that. We look forward to being part of Rapleys’ continued strategic growth plan, their presence across the UK and their commitment to invest in their people”.

Robert Clarke, Senior Partner at Rapleys said, “We have been clear in our ambitions to expand the Rapleys business across all core divisions and this is a key move for our commercial disciplines which we are able to leverage immediately. As well as sharing similar values to Rapleys, Mellersh & Harding have a huge track record in Central London office agency and investment amongst other services and will plug into our organisation perfectly. Both sets of clients stand to benefit hugely from this expansion of people and services. The acquisition is the next step towards our ambitions of being best in class in every core discipline and sector we choose to offer and, despite becoming a market leader in alternative assets in recent years, this is a strong signal that we are continuing to grow in the traditional industry sectors too. We look forward to welcoming the team into Rapleys and integrating our brilliant people and, of course, growing still further together both in London and nationally.”

Mellersh & Harding will be known as a Rapleys business. Its investment team will sit with Rebecca Harper as Head of Investment and her team, whilst the central London office agency team marks a newly strengthened offer for the business. All other disciplines will merge into the existing framework and will operate together going forwards.

In the last 12 months, Rapleys has seen turnover increase by over 25% across the business, whilst it has launched several new services including New Homes, Rapleys Living, Public Sector Land and ‘For Profit’ Consultancy within the Residential Division, Utilities Consulting for Developers in Building Consultancy, adding new specialist areas of expertise in Planning such as Data Centres and Renewables and launching a new Cambridge and Birmingham office, the latter as the business’s national hub.