What a difference a year makes. After an initial public offering, a series of acquisitions – including City institution Ince & Co in October 2018 – and a share price drop earlier this year, Ince Group plc, which previously operated as Gordon Dadds, moves up 23 places in the Legal Business 100 2018/19 following a 69% boost in revenue from £31.2m to £52.6m.
The listed firm added £21.4m to its top line through five acquisitions in 2017 and 2018. The group reported a 73% profit increase from £8.8m to £15.2m, while earnings per share surged by 79% and dividend per share increased by 50%. However, the group reported a £14.3m non-recurring acquisition cost and a debt reduction of £5.5m, bringing the actual figure down to £2.9m.
The firm bounced back after experiencing its lowest share price of 130p in March 2019 – the firm listed for 140p when it floated on to the London Stock Exchange in 2017. But despite political, structural and economic uncertainty affecting Ince, the firm says that many of its practices have done well. Anticipated regulatory changes will create opportunities and problems according to joint managing partner Nick Goldstone, and he claims the firm is well equipped to help its client base in both challenging and positive times. For now, however, the firm’s recently acquired shipping practice was responsible for 17% of the total revenue in 2018/19. Other top-performing practices were corporate and tax, which contributed 22%, while disputes and real estate made up 15% and 14% of overall revenue respectively.
The group is present in Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, the UAE, Singapore, Hong Kong and China. The firm says it currently works with US firms but is not considering a tie-up as its international strategy is ‘to the East not to the West’. In London, the firm opened an office in the Lloyd’s building to house its insurance team, and will also be opening a West London office for its private client and family departments, which will operate as Gordon Dadds, respecting the legacy practices of the two firms. All other offices in the UK and internationally will be known as Ince.
As well as expanding its business in multiple jurisdictions, the group has made a number of hires and promotions, notably the joint managing partnership of Goldstone, former head of dispute resolution, and Michael Volikas, previously global managing partner for the firm’s shipping group. Goldstone and Volikas will oversee the London offices while legacy Gordon Dadds leader Adrian Biles remains as chief executive.
How has the year been for you?
Nick Goldstone: The highlight is clearly the merger – the fact that we brought together two very different firms to benefit from the sum of the parts and to expand, from the Gordon Dadds side, the international offering and, from the Ince legacy side, service lines that were not there before. A client in the Hong Kong office of Ince, who has domestic issues in the UK relating to private client or HR matters, now has access to a London office that caters for all of that and it wasn’t there before.
What are the international targets for the firm?
Goldstone: The international strategy is to continue building the offices that we have and possibly open more. We recently opened in Gibraltar and we have now taken control of Monaco. The Dubai office is ripe for further acquisition of other professionals. We want to broaden out the legacy Ince international offices so that they are no longer simply just focused on shipping, insurance and energy/infrastructure but also can offer a link to the core services from legacy Gordon Dadds in London, knowing that there is a very robust multi-disciplinary legal practice to work with.
How much have client expectations changed?
Goldstone: It’s early days yet. We need to tell our clients, particularly on the legacy Ince side, that we now have a much wider service offering while still being absolutely excellent in shipping and insurance. We are a multi-professional practice, with all sorts of different professional services, such as consulting, Gordon Dadds Financial Markets and a regulatory solutions team that deals with compliance. We can also help with reputation management in the different sectors that we’ve covered historically in the two different law firms. It’s an education process, a sharing of knowledge while growing the firm because we offer so much more than what Ince and Gordon Dadds used to offer. We need to get that message out there and not just to our clients but to our international offices.