Rosenblatt issues ultimatum to oust RBG Holdings chief

The City lawyer who is the largest shareholder in RBG Holdings, a listed legal services business, has demanded that the company’s boss resigns or faces a vote.
Ian Rosenblatt is understood to have written to the company’s board to call for Jon Divers, the chief executive, and two non-executive directors to stand down immediately.
The company, which listed on the alternative investment market in London in 2018, has seen its revenue and share price fall sharply amid internal difficulties around its management. Its stock price peaked at about 160p in the middle of 2021, but closed on Monday at 1.75p.
According to a report on The Lawyer website, and confirmed to The Times, Rosenblatt first demanded the removal of Divers last month. He is said to have written to the board for a second time, having been approached by a team that specialises in turning around struggling legal practices. It is understood that the RBG board is set to meet on Tuesday to discuss Rosenblatt’s latest demand.
According to the report, the proposed replacement boss is Adil Taha, a former investment banker, who has worked with several legal practices.
It is also understood that two new non-executive directors are being lined up to support Taha. Jonathan Watmough, the former managing partner at City law firm RPC, and Jonathan Fox, the former chief executive of Collyer Bristow, the law firm.
Rosenblatt was the founder of Rosenblatt Solicitors, the City litigation law firm, and in 2018 he announced it would become the fourth legal practice to float on the London stock exchange. It raised about £43 million when admitted to the Aim market later that year and several months after the business launched an independent litigation funding subsidiary, LionFish.
• RBG under pressure as £13m of litigation funding is written off
In 2019 revenue at the firm grew by 19 per cent and two years later it took over another City law firm, Memery Crystal, in a £30 million deal.
Not long after that, the business sacked its then chief executive, Nicola Foulston, with the board saying it had lost confidence in the former motor racing chief.
The board of directors was then changed, with Divers, who had been the chief operating officer at Memery Crystal, taking over the top job.
Last year the company sold LionFish for £3.1 million — and last month the group’s second biggest institutional shareholder, Dowgate Group, which had held 14.1 per cent of RBG’s shares, reduced its stake to less than 3 per cent.