Addleshaw Goddard news, updates and analysis | Page 1 of 14

Addleshaw Goddard has repeated last year’s outstanding performance in another set of promising financial results today (3 August), reporting a 18% increase in revenue growth from £377m to £443m, matched by an 18% rise in total profit from £155m to £184m.

PEP is estimated to be £909,000 by Legal Business, an increase of 5%.

The firm lists the Middle East as its fastest growing region, with a striking 43% spike in income growth in FY22/23, as well as UK income increasing by 14%. The firm also attributes 20% of its overall income growth to its practices outside the UK and the Middle East.

Furthermore, Addleshaw’s closing cash position has gone up by £10m since last year to £146m.

In terms of practice areas, the financial results show that Addleshaw’s financial services outfit is the firm’s highest-performing sector, contributing 30% of the firm’s overall income.

The firm’s international partner headcount has grown by 11% to 356 individuals, equating to an addition of 52 new partners, 32 of which were lateral hires and 20 of which were internally promoted.

Some of the firm’s standout mandates from the last fiscal year include advising: ASDA on its £2.3bn buyout of EG Group’s UK and Ireland businesses; BP Oman on a $1bn green hydrogen and ammonia project; COFCO international on its $1.6bn sustainability loan; and DP world on its $2.4bn investment in three UAE assets.

Managing partner John Joyce (pictured)  stated: ‘We continue to broaden our capabilities to support clients wherever they might need us. The scale of our investments demonstrates our ambition to continue increasing the value we can offer to our clients, whilst creating new opportunities for everyone who works at AG.’

He added: ‘In the last two years we have added materially to our partner group with nearly 100 appointments. We are more global than ever too, now with seven offices in Europe and with Riyadh, our fourth office in the Middle East is expected to open shortly.’

Ayesha.Ellis@legalease.co.uk

Addleshaw Goddard has credited its increased European footprint for the promising financial results released today (3 August), which saw revenue rise by 18% to £377m, and an increase in profit by 16% to £155m.

Regional revenue performance is also testament to the firm’s improvement in Europe. Though UK turnover was up a solid 15%, it paled in comparison with that generated overseas, which jumped a striking 30%.

Much of this growth is due to Addleshaw expanding European profile. In the last 12 months, the firm has opened offices in Dublin, Luxembourg, Frankfurt and Munich, adding to the Paris and Hamburg bases which were established in the last couple of years.

The results see the firm outstrip last years’ performance, when it saw a 12% rise in revenue.  The firm’s six core sectors all recorded growth. The finance & projects, corporate and commercial, and real estate practices were standouts, each achieving double-digit percentage revenue increases. Income from recruitment portal AG Integrate also spiked by 47%.

Headcount also increased. The overall lawyer number rose by 15% to 2,348, while 40 new partners were added across key practices globally. As part of the expansion in Ireland, there were 25 new partners.

Responding to the figures, managing partner John Joyce (pictured) said: ‘Our goal through the year was to continue investing in further growth and bringing to clients the advantages of a growing globally active business. It has been another challenging and changeable year and so to have materially grown both UK and global turnover is very satisfying. I am hugely proud of what our team has achieved across many different fronts to better support and service clients, to offer people a great place to work and to deliver our strongest performance to date.

‘The firm’s 18% revenue growth reflects two main underlying trends. Firstly, the year was a very busy one for our transactional teams, but generally across the firm we were busier than ever working across a greater number of offices on higher-value work. Activity levels surpassed the prior year in every month of the year in many teams and geographies, which is particularly impressive given the 20% growth we saw in each of the final six months of the prior year. Secondly, we made further material people investments, most notably responding to client demand for a meaningful presence in Ireland and Luxembourg as well as growing Paris and Germany.  Already all of our European offices are working regularly together to offer a much wider experience for clients.’

Charles.avery@legalease.co.uk

Addleshaw Goddard has kept pace with an emerging trend over the past month, posting robust financial results for 2020/21 following a pandemic-hit year previously.

Revenue this time around is up 12% to £321m from £288m in 2019/2020. The firm said this constitutes an eighth year of successive income growth, ‘delivered notwithstanding the challenges of the year’. Following further planned investments in new offices, infrastructure and people, the closing cash position of £108m is ‘a record for AG, underpinning the firm’s balance sheet strength’.

Profit has also seen impressive growth, after a minor fall last year. Total distributable profit reached £136m, equal to a margin of 42%, while profit per equity partner hit £849,000 – a striking 23% leap from the previous year, where PEP fell 5% to £690,000.

In addition, the total bonus provision for AG this year will be ‘three times larger than the prior year, which itself had been a record, to reflect the positive outcome for the year’.

Managing partner John Joyce (pictured), who began a third successive four-year term in May, said: ‘We are incredibly proud of the people we have at AG. Their combined team effort and our great clients have seen us deliver strong growth, higher profitability and further balance sheet strength in challenging times.  In the last year we have kept many investments on track and our teams have overcome tremendous disruption to support our efforts including the successful opening of our France office a year after launching in Germany and I can’t thank them enough.  We will continue to try to be as flexible and supportive as we can be in order to help people succeed and are investing heavily in bonuses this year as well in recognition of people’s efforts.

He added: ‘Looking ahead our intention is to build on the growth we have seen and the investments we have been making in order to continue delivering to clients a global business with ever more imaginative and impactful solutions.’

In terms of practice area performance, the firm reported that its litigation practice has grown around 20% year on year since 2017; finance & projects practice closed  11% up on the prior year; while corporate & commercial and real estate saw 8% and 7% growth respectively. Approximately 80% of the firm’s income is generated through its six core sectors: energy & utilities, financial services, healthcare, retail and consumer, real estate and transport. Highlights include advising Asda on matters relating to its sale by Walmart to a consortium of the Issa brothers and TDR Capital, and representing the Department of Transport in its successful defence against the challenge by multiple bidder consortia over their failure to secure multi-billion-pound rail franchises.

In unveling the results, the firm said that it had added 36 new partners in the past year – 23 laterally hired and 13 internally promoted – across key practice areas including capital markets, civil fraud, corporate governance, infrastructure, projects and energy and international arbitration.

mark.mcateer@legalbusiness.co.uk

Addleshaw Goddard adhered to an increasingly familiar trend over the last financial year, the firm’s latest figures show, with revenues proving resilient in the last months of 2019/20 while partner profits took a minor dent.

Turnover was up 4% to £288m from £275m the previous financial year, when the firm exceeded all expectations as revenue soared 14%. However, profit per equity partner (PEP) endured a modest decline, falling 5% to £690,000 from £727,000 in 2018/19, when the figure jumped by 12%. Over 80% of revenue was generated through energy and utilities, financial services, health, real estate, retail and consumer, and transport.  

Commenting on the figures, managing partner John Joyce (pictured) said: ‘Our business responded well to a very unpredictable period for our clients with the ongoing Brexit saga, then an election and in the second half of the year the impact of coronavirus, first in Asia and then more widely. After a strong first half, we adapted quickly to the pandemic and to close out the year in-line with plan is testament to the quality and diversification of the firm’s client base and the resilience of our people and the infrastructure built in recent years.’

The consensus is that those free of debt and with meaningful cash reserves are likely to be safest in 2020/21. Despite the fall in PEP, the firm managed to improve its liquidity with net cash closing at £84m in 2019/20, a significant increase on the firm’s £59m balance sheet in 2018/19. Distributable profit, meanwhile, was also up after a small 1% increase to £102m.

Addleshaws also grew its partner ranks over the year, with 24 new partners recruited across construction, energy and infrastructure, global investigations, funds finance, equity capital markets and restructuring. The firm also opened its first office in Germany in June 2019.

Joyce added: ‘The only certainty this year is that it will be even more uncertain than the last but we have made a solid start and some teams remain very busy whilst others have seen their markets badly impacted and arguably have a more negative outlook. We very much retain an appetite to grow and retaining profit from last year, as we did the prior year, alongside the overall strength of our balance sheet leaves us well placed to weather uncertainty and continue to invest and recruit where the right opportunity presents itself.’

thomas.alan@legalbusiness.co.uk

For more on Addleshaw Goddard, see our interview with John Joyce earlier this year: ‘The Addleshaws Interview: The rebound guy’