Top 20 UK law firm Pinsent Masons has seen its year-on-year turnover increase by 40% from £221m to £309m thanks to its merger with McGrigors in June last year.
The firms, which would have had a combined turnover last year of around £294m, have in real terms seen a growth in revenue of 5%.
The increase comes after a year of international expansion during which Pinsents opened new offices in Munich, Paris and Istanbul, for the first time giving it more offices overseas than in the UK.
The 1500-lawyer firm has also doubled the size of its Shanghai office with the hire of 13 lawyers from US Salans, led by former regional managing partner Bernd-Uwe Stucken and corporate partner Wei Liu, taking the office to around 50 staff. In Singapore it launched a TMT practice with the hire of the founding partner of local IT boutique Keystone Law Corporation.
Announcing this year’s results the firm pointed towards a number of significant client wins including its panel appointments by Spanish infrastructure giant Ferrovial and UK energy regulator Ofgem, and to several important lots on the Government Procurement Service panel. It was also appointed by Balfour Beatty to advise on complex and critical matters, and act as sole provider on all UK business-as-usual work.
The firm has also made a number of senior hires during the same period, including a four-partner life sciences team from Fasken Martineau’s City office led by Paul Ranson; Dundas & Wilson’s rated restructuring expert Claire Massie to head up its Scotland and Northern Ireland restructuring team; tax specialist Darren Mellor-Clark who joined last month as a non-lawyer partner from KPMG; BP energy disputes specialist John Gilbert and Addleshaw Goddard City-based financial services disputes specialist Michael Isaacs.
However, last year the firm cut 62 support roles and this year made 13 employment fee-earners redundant as it restructured the department, blaming the changed demand across the UK and internationally.
David Ryan, managing partner of Pinsent Masons, said: ‘We are pleased to report a 5% increase in turnover at a time when the UK market in particular remains challenging. The firm has changed dramatically over the past 12 months and we have made significant investment into the business.
‘We continue to see strong demand in global sectors such as energy, infrastructure and advanced manufacturing and technology, particularly in litigation, tax, competition and regulatory. The firm has moved forwards in financial services, with strong growth in insurance and restructuring.’
According to Ryan, the year saw ‘significant and encouraging’ contributions from the new Paris and Munich offices, while Asia Pacific was ‘a real bright spot’, with turnover up by 30% in the region for the second consecutive year.
In addition to international expansion the firm has also focused on developing new services to meet the changing shape of client demand. At the beginning of 2013 it launched Vario, a flexible resources hub to provide qualified lawyers to clients on a contract basis. Earlier this month it launched Cerico, a joint venture with IT consultancy Campbell Nash developed to help large businesses meet global compliance requirements.
Another firm to have seen its 2012-13 results boosted significantly by merger is DWF, which saw its turnover jump by 84% to £188m.
caroline.hill@legalease.co.uk
