Irwin Mitchell has outperformed the relatively flat growth of its insurance-focused peers with modest turnover growth of 4% from £202.7m to £210.6m, along with a 6% rise in profits before tax from £17.1m to £18.1m.
Irwin Mitchell’s group chief executive Andrew Tucker attributed the performance to a mixture of organic growth and investment over the last couple of years which included the acquisition of private wealth law firm Berkeley Law, opening of a new office in Cambridge and the launch of IMe Law, an alternative business structure (ABS) venture with FTSE250 insurer esure.
‘In 2013/14, we took very deliberate decisions to sacrifice a proportion of profit to invest even further in our business and we are beginning to see the return on those and earlier investments with both an increase in income and profit before tax,’ said Tucker.
He added: ‘We have continued with our investment strategy during 2014/15 and this is evident not just in the acquisitions and partner hires that we have made, but in our investment in high profile marketing campaigns, our commitment to widening our UK-wide footprint with new office openings and further investment in our infrastructure.’
Irwin Mitchell has made six acquisitions since it became an ABS in 2012 and in March 2014 announced that it had secured a £60m four-year finance package with an additional £30m ‘accordion’ facility with HSBC, Lloyds and the Royal Bank of Scotland to fund its strategic plan to grow its business ‘substantially’.
As part of this expansion, the firm embarked on a major recruitment programme, which included 29 partner hires and an additional 10 partner promotions in 2014/15.
So far this year law firms with large insurance practices have suffered poor performances with DWF and Kennedys flatlining while Hill Dickinson and Ince & Co saw revenue fall by over 5%.
kathryn.mccann@legalease.co.uk