Global 100 overview: Beasts of burden

In Legal Business’ last Global 100 issue, as firms enjoyed financial years almost entirely untainted by the economic chaos wrought by Covid-19, we said the strain would start to show in this year’s report. It meant last year’s results were all the more important, as they would be the platform upon which Global 100 firms would face their worst economic crisis in over a decade.

We added that across key metrics, the global elite had reason to be optimistic – gross revenue was up 5% to $119.72bn – but the dent many saw to their profitability was only anticipated to get worse, as average profit per equity partner (PEP) at a Global 100 firm shrank 4% to $1.8m across 2019/20.