Big changes are under way at Henley Management College.

The college has announced that it plans to merge with the University of Reading Business School. “We are at the formal discussion stage,” says Chris Bones, principal of Henley. “We have due diligence to get through, but our intention is to expand by completing an institutional merger with the University of Reading.”

The resulting (provisionally named) Henley Business School of the University of Reading will be one of the largest business schools in Europe.

At a time when many business schools are grappling with the challenge of competing in a global market, the partnership strategy makes good sense, and the synergy between Henley and Reading could not be better, says Bones.

Reading does not offer an MBA, or possess Henley’s undoubted brand strength; Henley lacks Reading’s portfolio of pre-experience specialist masters. Reading University is also home to some strong business-related departments, property, for example, and one of the largest mock electronic dealing room environments in a European business school.

It is a case, says Gordon Marshall, vice-chancellor of the University of Reading, of two and two making five. “We have a highly rated academic business school which does very well in the research assessment exercise,” he says. “And the areas that we currently don’t do are precisely the areas where Henley is very strong, such as the MBA and executive education.”

Logistically, executive education will remain at the existing Henley site, while the MBA and other business education will be housed in a state of the art £35 million building that is currently under construction at the University of Reading campus.

“The merger gives us nearly twice the scale we have today,” says Bones, who hopes that the two schools will be operating as a single institution by the end of this year.

“It creates a full service business school, from undergraduate to board. Our target is to be one of the world’s top schools, and this provides a strong, secure base from which to pursue that ambition.”

What else is happening in the world of business schools

Judge is joining the ranks of business schools offering a specialist masters qualification in finance. The Cambridge school has announced the launch of its postexperience, year-long Master of Finance, available this autumn. The programme is designed for people with at least two years’ experience in banking and finance who wish to accelerate their finance career.

Robin Buchanan took up his post as dean of London Business School last September. Unlike the previous two LBS deans, John Quelch and Laura Tyson, who were both from the academic world, Buchanan was a UK senior partner at Bain & Co, the global business consultancy.

George Yip, professor of strategic and international management at London Business School, although currently on leave of absence, has been named as the new dean of Erasmus University in Rotterdam. Yip, who has extensive business school and university, faculty and administration experience, had been vice-president, and director of research and innovation at Capgemini Consulting for the past two years. He takes up the top spot at Erasmus this month.

As an increasing number of business schools expand their global presence, Audencia Nantes School of Management has announced two new academic partnerships in Asia. This brings the French school’s total number of overseas agreements to 87, across 39 countries. The latest partnerships are in South Korea and India – the Graduate School of Business at Ewha Women’s University, Seoul, and XLRI Jamshedpur School of Business and Human Resources in Jamshedpur.

Also in France, HEC Paris started a new part-time MBA programme last September, to complement its full-time MBA. The new programme is aimed at managers between the ages of 25 and 35 who do not want to take an extended period away from work but want to study for a business masters at a leading school.

Joining a handful of European business schools that offer specialist programmes in Islamic finance, Lancaster University Management School has launched a course in Islamic banking as part of its MSc in money, banking and finance. The new elective anticipates increased demand for this type of programme, given the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s aim to promote London as a hub for Islamic finance.

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