Azets Promotes Six Scottish Staff After Years of Deals

Azets has made six of its Scottish staff partners, four in audit and two in wealth management, after years of buying the firms they trained in. The promotions, announced on 9 October 2026, put senior names on both sides of the same client problem: the accounts, and the money around them.

Greig McKnight, regional managing director for Scotland, called the round an investment in service as owners face heavier reporting and a tighter inheritance tax relief. The four new audit partners are chartered accountants and statutory auditors. The two wealth partners are chartered financial planners.

Four Audit Partners Came From Firms Azets Already Bought

The announcement is blunt about origin. Each of the four auditors trained with businesses that later became Azets, so they already hold the client relationships the group paid to acquire. Azets still hires partners from outside, including a first external partner in Aberdeen in May 2026, but this set of six is internal.

THE SIX NEW SCOTTISH PARTNERS

Dreghorn’s brief is financial planning and cash flow modelling. Bleasdale has spent more than a decade in senior strategic wealth roles. McKnight said Victoria, Jen, Michael and David understand the clients and will add leadership capacity across the audit team as demand for high-quality, responsive advice grows.

Why Scottish Owners Need Audit and Wealth in the Same Room

Azets is pairing auditors and wealth planners because the same owner now has to sign heavier accounts and a tighter estate plan at once, and the firm wants one partner group to hold both conversations in Glasgow and in Edinburgh. McKnight said businesses and owners are dealing with a more complex audit, regulatory and financial reporting environment, plus a growing need for joined-up input on growth, succession, tax, investment and long-term financial planning.

That is not a slogan from a brochure. A survey published on 8 October 2026 by Armstrong Watson, covering 840 owner-managed businesses in 2026, found that 52% of respondents are aged 55 or over and 44% expect to leave their business within five years. Half said they have already put an exit or succession plan into the business plan. The other half have not.

Praveen Gupta, UK head of tax at Azets, said the private client team supports entrepreneurs, individuals and private businesses with inheritance tax, succession planning, cross-border tax matters and intergenerational wealth strategies, in what he called a complex tax environment. The six promotions put that offer on a named partner in each of the two largest Scottish cities.

The £2.5 Million Relief Cap That Forced the Calendar

From 6 April 2026, 100% relief from inheritance tax on qualifying business and agricultural property is limited to £2.5 million per person. Owners who treated the old full relief as a given now have a number on the page, and many are rewriting wills, shareholder agreements and sale plans around it. Business Relief for Inheritance Tax still reduces the value of a trading business or unlisted shares when an estate is taxed, but the cap changes how much of that value actually escapes the charge.

WHAT THE 2026 OWNER SURVEY FOUND

• Age of owners: 52% of the 840 respondents are 55 or over.
• Exit clock: 44% expect to leave within five years.
• Plans on paper: Half have an exit or succession plan in the business plan; half do not.
• Tax trigger: 23% have already acted on the relief changes and 18% have reviewed plans without acting yet.

A further 17% intend to review. More than two in five respondents, 23% plus 18%, have already looked at succession because of the cap. Among those who have a destination in mind, 27% plan to pass or sell to their children. Another 15% expect the business to cease altogether.

Richard Major, Azets head of private clients, said the firm is investing in people and expanding what it can do as the needs of private clients keep changing. The Scottish promotions are one local expression of that: two new wealth partners sitting beside four new audit partners, rather than a standalone private-client hire in London.

Glasgow and Edinburgh Each Get Both Specialisms

Four of the six sit in Glasgow and two in Edinburgh, and the split is deliberate. Each city now has audit partners and a wealth partner, so a family company that files in one place can pick up estate and investment advice without being sent down the road. Azets has Scottish offices in Aberdeen, Ayr, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Perth, but McKnight named Glasgow and Edinburgh as the pair that lets the firm develop wealth capability across Scotland.

Having senior specialists in both Glasgow and Edinburgh allows us to develop that capability across Scotland. Taken together, these six promotions demonstrate the depth of talent we have within Azets in Scotland. They reflect our commitment to career development for our people while ensuring our clients have access to experienced advisers who understand their businesses and can bring colleagues from across the firm around them when they need broader and integrated support.

Greig McKnight, Regional Managing Director for Scotland, Azets

The wealth side of that support is written as retirement, estate and investment planning, plus business protection and employee benefits. Dreghorn and Bleasdale are the named partners who now carry that work at the same rank as the auditors. McKnight called wealth an increasingly important part of the service Azets provides to business owners, entrepreneurs, individuals and families.

Buying Firms Is Getting Harder in Scotland

Azets in Scotland is a stack of older names. In February 2026 McKnight said the Scottish business was up 8% year on year on fees and on course for about £51 million, which would take it through £50 million for the first time, with headcount then nearly 500 after the Paisley deal. He also said acquisitions were still part of the strategy, and that there was nothing close at that moment, because consolidation had left fewer independent firms willing to join a corporate group.

HOW AZETS WAS ASSEMBLED IN SCOTLAND

1. October 2017: Campbell Dallas and Springfords join Baldwins, then part of Cogital Group, in the first Scottish move.
2. May 2018: Ayr firm Sinclair Scott transfers into the same group.
3. 3 May 2019: Scott-Moncrieff joins Campbell Dallas under the Cogital umbrella.
4. September 2020: The Scottish firms take the Azets name.
5. August 2024: Paisley firm Milne Craig is acquired, adding a century-old accountancy and wealth practice.
6. 9 October 2026: Six internal staff are made partners in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The 2024 deal is the one that most clearly prefigures this partner round. Azets said Milne Craig brought more than 90 staff and 2,000 clients, and that the purchase deepened accounting, tax, audit, corporate finance, payroll and wealth management. Two years later the firm is not announcing another Scottish purchase. It is putting partner titles on people already inside the enlarged group.

McKnight, himself an external audit specialist, said in that February interview that tax specialisms were one of the biggest growth areas, and that the firm had been investing in partners and directors so clients could put pounds back in their pockets. The October round extends that logic from tax into audit leadership and wealth, without adding a new brass plate on a high street.

What the Higher Audit Thresholds Do to Mid-Tier Work

UK small-company tests rose for financial years beginning on or after 6 April 2025, so a company can now skip a statutory audit if it meets two of three limits: turnover of no more than £15 million (it was £10.2 million), a balance sheet total of no more than £7.5 million (it was £5.1 million), and no more than 50 employees, a test that did not move. The first accounts under those limits are the 2026 year-ends landing on partners’ desks now, which makes Azets’ decision to add four audit partners look, at first glance, like a bet against a shrinking legal market.

SMALL COMPANY AUDIT TESTS

McKnight did not talk about more audit certificates. He talked about high-quality, responsive advice, and about owners who want auditors who already know the business. Plenty of companies will still need that work even if the statute lets them skip it.

THE AUDIT WORK THAT HAS NOT GONE AWAY

• Size tests: A company still needs an audit if it fails two of the three limits, often for two years running.
• Ineligible entities: Groups, some charities and other bodies sit outside the small-company exemption.
• Lenders and buyers: Banks and purchasers still ask for audited figures when they write cheques.
• Reporting change: New lease rules can push assets onto the balance sheet and drag a firm back over a size test.

A separate government consultation, open until 30 November 2026, asks whether medium-sized companies should get the same audit exemption as small ones. That is still a proposal. Until it is law, the live pressure on a firm such as Azets is the 2025 threshold rise, plus owners who will pay for an audit they no longer legally need if a lender, a buyer or a family succession demands one.

The six new partners do not settle that market. They put a named auditor and a named wealth planner in the two cities where Azets expects those conversations to start, on the back of a Scottish business McKnight was already steering toward £51 million of fees with a bench built from firms it had bought.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is an Azets Partner a Company Director at Companies House?

No. Azets Holdings Ltd says “Board Director” means a statutory director registered at Companies House, and that other titles which include the word Partner are not registered statutory directors or principals of the company. The six Scottish promotions are seniority and client-facing rank inside the group, not a change in who is on the corporate filing.

What Extra Detail Did the Owner Survey Add Beyond the Tax Cap?

Armstrong Watson also found that 14% of respondents have not yet considered how they will exit, and that 15% expect the business to cease rather than pass to family, managers or a buyer. Among those who do intend to transfer ownership to family members, almost three-quarters say the next generation is already in the business, and 79% have discussed their intentions with them.

Do Two of Three Size Tests in One Year Make a Company Small?

Not on their own. Company-size rules generally require a firm to meet two of the three tests for two consecutive years before it changes band, with a transitional rule for the first year beginning on or after 6 April 2025 that lets the new higher limits be treated as if they had also applied in the previous year. Charities and some group companies follow different tests again.

When Did the Scottish Firms Drop the Campbell Dallas and Scott-Moncrieff Names?

In September 2020, after Campbell Dallas and Springfords had joined Baldwins and Cogital in October 2017 and Scott-Moncrieff had joined on 3 May 2019. The Azets name then covered those businesses and other UK firms in the same group, including Baldwins and Wilkins Kennedy.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis for information only. It does not constitute tax, legal, financial planning or investment advice, and it is not a substitute for advice on a specific estate, company or partnership. Readers should consult a qualified tax adviser, chartered financial planner or solicitor before changing ownership, wills, partnership agreements or relief claims. Figures, role titles and survey results reflect the cited statements as published and may change as firms, HMRC guidance and company-size rules are updated.