FG Blake set up on Grafton Street in Dublin in 1923 and made a name for itself in the post-civil war Free State, advising on the new double taxation laws between newly independent Ireland and the UK.
The firm merged with Wexford-based Hughes & Associates in 2005, creating Hughes Blake, an insolvency specialist that eventually became a member of the Baker Tilly International network in 2016.
It was a business with ambition, but growth was primarily organic. But that all changed when private equity entered the equation.
In 2022 Azets — a UK and Nordics business advisory practice backed by HG Capital and PAI Partners — proposed to make Baker Tilly Hughes Blake “a national firm of scale”, according to Neil Hughes, the chief executive.