Manolete Partners’ founder and CEO Steven Cooklin has resigned from his role as CEO, leaving the City after a 40-year career.
The AIM-listed litigation funder – founded in 2009 and named after a famous bullfighter – announced that the firm’s managing director, solicitor Mena Halton, will succeed him as CEO.
The funder specialises in cases involving litigation against former directors and their associates or connected parties, particularly where insolvency cases lack sufficient funds to start proceedings.
It focuses on high-value litigation, particularly on preference payments, transactions at undervalue, misfeasance, and similar breaches of duty, fiduciary or otherwise.
Manolete stated that Cooklin had decided to leave the business for several reasons. These included its stabilisation post-Covid, during which insolvency proceedings were put on hold, resulting in insolvency petitions decreasing by 40% and Manolete’s profits falling 26%.
It also recently refinanced its debt with HSBC and announced strong results for the year ended 31 March, with audited results showing a record total revenue of £30.5m, a 16% increase compared to the previous financial year.
It also revealed 282 new case investments in UK insolvency cases, excluding Bounce Back Loan pilot claims. In March, it also reached a settlement agreement in its first cartel claim related to the ongoing Trucks Cartel litigation in the Competition Appeal Tribunal. The settlement, valued at £3.2m, included reimbursement of costs and profit share and was paid this month.
Halton, meanwhile, qualified as a solicitor in 1984 and has been with Manolete for 11 years, having previously served as head of legal before taking on responsibility for commercial operations.
She trained and qualified at legacy Dentons before becoming a partner at specialist insolvency practitioners Rothman Pantall, where she was an in-house lawyer.
The firm said she was “ideally suited to step up to the CEO role”, noting that Cooklin remained a large shareholder and would work with the board over the next 12 months to ensure a smooth transition.
Manolete’s chair, Lord Leigh of Hurley, said: “Steven has put his heart and soul into building Manolete into the business it is today and embodies the entrepreneurial spirit that is required to build successful enterprises. We understand Steven’s reasons for wanting to step back and are delighted that in Mena, we have the ideal person to continue to lead the business.”
Cooklin said: “Taking Manolete from the inception of an ‘idea’ in 2009, through a number of venture financings, to then, in 2018, a highly successful IPO on AIM, has been the pinnacle of my career.
“Manolete’s work for, and alongside, HMRC, the Insolvency Service, the British Business Bank and the many hundreds of outstanding private sector insolvency practitioners and insolvency and restructuring lawyers has been a badge of great honour for the company and me personally.”
He added: “I am secure in the knowledge that, as I step down from 16 years of leading this fine company, both its legacy and its bright future are safe in the hands of that brilliant team.”
Halton said she was delighted to follow Cooklin as CEO, having worked closely with him over the last decade.
Speaking to GLP, she added: “I welcome the opportunity to build on the business model which has established Manolete as the market leader in insolvency litigation finance. I have every confidence that the strength and depth of expertise within the Manolete team ensures we will retain that leading position and continue to grow the business.”
Earlier this year, it announced that its CFO, Mark Tarverner, had left Manolete after five and a half years, with the firm reporting it continued to make good progress with the appointment of a permanent CFO. Cooklin’s brother, now retired senior clerk Paul Cooklin, was also previously COO at Manolete until his departure in 2017.
In April 2024, the Cabinet Office approved the appointment of Tory peer Lord Theodore Agnew, a former UK government minister, as a consultant to the funder. Agnew left the government as a critic of its handling of the fraudulent misuse of Bounce Back Loans.
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