About The IMS Group

IMS was founded as a compliance consultancy focusing on the wholesale sector in 1997 by Scott Wilson. For the last 13 years IMS has built itself the reputation as the UK's leading compliance provider, offering its clients pragmatic solutions that are appropriate for their business needs. In 2000 IMS founded IMS Recruitment, which offers bespoke retained search and contingency services to the wholesale asset management and securities industries. Now in its 10th year of delivering a high quality service at affordable prices, IMS Recruitment has become a trusted advisor delivering high value recruitment based solutions.

In 2008 IMS Buzzacott LLP was formed - a joint venture that brings together two of the leading suppliers of FSA compliance, audit, accounting and taxation services to the UK financial services industry. In January 2010 IMS took over Mirabella which was set up in 1998. Mirabella offers its regulatory permissions solutions to investment firms who need a high quality and time efficient means of accessing financial markets. Mirabella has helped many dozens of investment firms establish or continue their businesses by extending its own regulatory permissions to its clients.

From the outset IMS has invested a great deal of time and effort training and educating its clients on compliance related topics, resulting in the formation of Education and Training. The goal of this approach has been to provide the necessary tools to empower clients to make better compliance decisions.

At the start of 2010 efforts commenced in formally structuring The IMS Group. The Group is lead by 4 Directors and is responsible for all support services such as finance, HR, marketing, sales and administration.

In November 2010, IMS accelerated its growth plan via a majority investment from Sovereign Capital, the UK’s Buy and Build specialist. Sovereign Capital provides IMS with the ideal combination of financial backing and business acceleration experience from the Sovereign Capital investment team. This will enable IMS to grow and build on its existing expertise in assisting clients with forthcoming challenges. To coincide with the investment from Sovereign Capital, IMS appointed Michel van Leeuwen as Group CEO and Tony Solway as Chairman.

With the backing of Sovereign Capital, IMS acquired MMS Regulatory Solutions "RSL" in February 2011. RSL is recognised as one of London’s  leading compliance consultancies and has built an excellent reputation for the quality of its service among its client base. Alan Leale-Green, Chief Executive of RSL, joined IMS as a Group Director together with his team of consultants.

The founding ethos of IMS was, and remains today, to build long term relationships with our clients and never to compromise on quality or standards.