Tag: financial results 2018/19

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Goodwin’s City arm hikes revenue 11% to $74m on the back of lateral bonanza

In another robust year for Boston’s Goodwin, its ever-expansive City arm has seen turnover lift 11% to $74m amid a year of aggressive investment.

The double-digit City turnover growth may not be as pacey as last year’s eye-catching 58% uptick to $66.8m, but it speaks of the benefits of investing heavily and sticking to the strategy in a year characterised by a slower rate of growth for many more mature practices of US firms in London.

Global revenue saw a comparable 11% increase to $1.33bn from $1.2bn in 2018, while profit per equity partner (PEP) rose 6% to $2.61m from $2.46m last year.

On the back of a sustained hiring spree, London lawyer headcount grew 23% to 86 fee-earners from 69 the previous year, outpacing 14% global headcount growth from 955 to 1,091. That growth resulted in a 3% dip in revenue per lawyer (RPL) from $1.255m to $1.219m for 2019.

Notably, the firm’s City lateral tally since the start of 2019 also stood at 11, chiefly in the tech practice, and mainly from rival in the space, Taylor Wessing.

The biggest haul came last summer with the team hire of Taylor Wessing’s head of life sciences Malcolm Bates, along with colleagues David Mardle, Tim Worden and Adrian Rainey.

The team followed the January 2019 addition of Taylor Wessing corporate partner Andrew Davis to its technology and life sciences practice and the March hire of Simon Thomas from Addleshaw Goddard as a partner in the financial restructuring practice.

More recently in August, tax partner Robert Young was hired from Taylor Wessing and Ali Ramadan joined from Orrick. Last November, private equity partner Carl Bradshaw went over from Kirkland & Ellis, while in January, Goodwin enlisted CMS’ private equity head James Grimwood and this month real estate partner Justin Cornelius joined from Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.

The firm also last year threw its weight behind London, promoting three to partner – private equity lawyer Ravi Chopra, tax lawyer Katie Leah and real estate lawyer Martin Smith – in its 33-strong global round.

A relatively recent entrant into the London market, opening with a solitary partner (in the form of ex-Ashurst corporate real estate veteran and now Goodwin’s European chair, David Evans) in 2011, Goodwin’s success has been driven by a single-mindedness in sticking to and investing in the four core areas of real estate, private equity, life sciences and technology, mirroring the firm’s strongpoints in the US.

Goodwin had an impressive run of mandates during the financial year, acting for Medical Properties Trust on the acquisition of a corporate structure that owns a portfolio of 30 acute care hospital facilities, valued at roughly £1.5bn, with a team led by Evans, James Spence and Bradshaw.

The year also saw two $1bn mandates for Investcorp and a role advising Ares Management on the structuring and establishment of Ares European Real Estate Fund V, which closed last August having raised €1.78bn.

US firms to report more subdued financial performance out of London include Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, whose revenue remained broadly flat at $125.1m on the heels of a 28% surge in 2018, while Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft saw its London revenue drop for the second year in a row, falling 4% to $41.3 in 2019, in spite of global revenue growing 9% to $459m.

nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk

This article first appeared on Legal Business.

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DLA cracks £1bn international revenue after pumping ‘tens of millions’ into offices and IT

DLA Piper has increased profit at its international LLP for the fourth year running despite a sustained period of investing ‘tens of millions’ of pounds in office moves, refurbishments and IT systems.

A strong year for its European offices – and the implementation of new accounting standards – simultaneously saw revenue lift 18.5% to £1.09bn, although on an underlying basis it climbed about 7%, slightly up on last year’s 5% increase.

The firm’s international (non-US) revenue for the year to 30 April 2019 was up £169.9m, although £105.6m of this was attributable to changes to accounting standards which means the firm now has to account for disbursements as well as fee income. The revenue increase was nullified by a mirrored £105.6m increase in operating costs, also due to the new standards.

Stripping that out and a negligible foreign exchange impact this year, underlying revenue grew £65.9m, including £52m in Continental Europe. Wage and other inflation added £37.5m to operating costs, resulting in an 8% lift in profit to £340.8m.

DLA chief financial officer Paul Edwards told Legal Business he was pleased the firm had put together a string of strong years, following a turnover dip in 2014/15. But he was particularly happy about a fourth successive increase in profit, achieved during a period of investment for the firm.

In the 2018/19 financial year the firm invested more than £30m in its offices, including its marquee office move in London. The firm is also moving in Frankfurt and Birmingham, and has refurbished a number of its premises. That was on top of investment in IT systems, accelerated by DLA’s high-profile cyber incident in 2017. DLA’s borrowings more than doubled this year to £67.2m from £32.6m the year before.

‘We haven’t grown the bottom line simply by cost-cutting, in fact, quite the opposite,’ he said. ‘We’re talking about tens of millions of pounds of investment. I could have doubled that profit increase but then not made the investments which give you the longer term possibilities which we’re going to get.’

Key management personnel, which includes the senior partner, managing partner, members of the executive committee, international practice group heads, country managing partners and service directors took home another 9% pay increase following last year’s 22% lift, up to £48m from £44m.

Total staff numbers at the firm rose to 5,209 from 5,120, while fee earner numbers lifted to 2,187 from 2,135. Staff costs increased 5% to £347.1m.

Edwards said the first eight months of the current financial year were tracking ‘very strongly’ with activity levels higher than expected during a long-standing period of uncertainty.

‘What is pleasing for us is there is still a lot of uncertainty out there, and the UK – which is about a third of our business on the international side – obviously had a period of uncertainty, but business levels were quite active,’ he commented. ‘The caution we had baked into our budgets at the time didn’t really come through in the performance.’

hamish.mcnicol@legalease.co.uk

This article first appeared on Legal Business.