This year, Dixcart is delighted to be celebrating its 50th anniversary.
The Group was founded in 1972 and over the last 50 years has grown into 10 offices in 9 different jurisdictions: Cyprus, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, Malta, Nevis, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland, and the UK. View all of our offices here.
We have been providing professional support services for 50 years and are now celebrating our 50th anniversary.
There has been a large number of individuals significantly involved in the growth of the company over the years – too many to mention in this article. So many have helped to grow the Group offering we have today, from the Managing Directors involved at the inception of each office all the way through to today, to the long-standing staff we have, and professional team that makes Dixcart so special. It is the skill and expertise of our staff that makes us unique, and we are very proud of our people. We are delighted that over the years, a large number of staff have worked for the Group; some for more than twenty years, and a few for over thirty years now.
We take a look back at Dixcart's history and how it all began:
Chapter 1
Woolford Business
The Woolford business started in 1972 when Percy Woolford decided to move to Sark, in the Bailiwick of Guernsey.
At the same time, he established the first Dixcart Office in Guernsey, and began providing international financial services and advisory support for international clients.
Rob Joins the Family Business and expands Dixcart: Madeira and the UK
With Percy Woolford running Dixcart Trust Corporation Limited in Guernsey, Rob Woolford, Percy's son, was working at Midgley Snelling & Co, a firm of Chartered Accountants in the UK which handled a lot of mutual business. Early in 1989 Rob left Midgley Snelling & Co. and started a new accounting practice in the UK with Peter Wilman, called Woolford & Co Chartered Accountants, along with the establishment of a subsidiary of Dixcart to provide the support in the UK for the international clients of Dixcart. On Monday 3rd April 1989 the Dixcart office in the UK was established.
Meanwhile Percy Woolford had earlier in 1988 opened a new Dixcart office in Madeira, Portugal, to provide corporate services within the Madeira Free trade zone.
The Isle of Man
From 1968 onwards, Rob had worked actively with the Midgley Snelling & Co office in the Isle of Man, handling their international clients. These regular annual visits to the Isle of Man grew the desire to establish a Dixcart IOM office and in April 1989 this was put in place in conjunction with a local firm of Chartered Accountants called Edwards & Hartley, who managed the Dixcart office for many years. It was in 1996 that Dixcart established a physical presence in the Isle of Man, and the Dixcart office was established as a separate entity with its own premise.
Dixcart UK Accountants and Lawyers
Over the next five years, since its inception, Woolford & Co in the UK continued to grow and in 1994 Dixcart International was formed – working closely with the Dixcart offices and clients in the Channel Islands, Isle of Man and Madeira. Woolford & Co Chartered Accountants concentrated on UK professional services for UK enterprises and the development of an accounting practice.
In 1996 a joint venture called Sandown Insurance Services Limited was started. It was a general insurance brokerage business which ran for a further successful eight years before new rules made the compliance too onerous for a small brokerage business and it was sold.
However, things did not stand still for long!
In 1999, friends of Rob; Paul Morgan and Jeremy Russell left Mackrell Turner Garrett Solicitors and accepted an invitation to join the organisation in the UK, and thus Morgan Russell was born, growing the UK office from a team of accountants to a joint team of accountants and lawyers. In 2014, Morgan Russell adopted the Dixcart name and became Dixcart Legal.
Dixcart UK now has three entities: Dixcart Audit; Dixcart Chartered Accountants and Tax Advisers – Dixcart International Limited; and Dixcart Legal Limited.
We have therefore now been providing legal commercial services from the UK to international and UK clients for 20 years.
Next stop: Switzerland
It soon became clear that the expansion of the Group, from a service and marketing perspective, would be enhanced with a presence in Geneva. This resulted in the establishment of Dixcart Corporate Services in Geneva in 1997, initially managed by a local service provider but quickly growing into its own offices and providing local Swiss services. This enhanced the Dixcart Group's network of contacts and further developed the client base needing Group services.
Chapter 2 of the Dixcart story coming soon...
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