Turnover at UK boutique Sacker & Partners rose 13% to £26.8m last year as big corporates sought to restructure their pensions schemes.
Sackers, which counts Lloyds Bank, HSBC, John Lewis and ITV as clients, enjoyed a record year as revenue climbed £3.1m to £26.8m. Profits rose by 15%, from £13.6m in 2014 to £15.3m in the 12 months to 31 December 2015.
The growth was organic, with the firm employing 26 partners and 76 staff in both years. Ian Pittaway, senior partner at Sackers, told Legal Business: ‘It was a very good year. The general routine work was of a higher level and there were a few mega projects too. Generally the pensions world was pretty busy.’
The top earning partner at Sackers took home £1.45m in 2015, which is nearly £300,000 more than the previous year.
Pittaway added: ‘This is our highest ever turnover and it’s record profits too. Around £25m is usually where we aim to be. Our numbers are more steady than most of our competitors. The partners are pleased. It was a busy year.’
Pittaway said that while corporates are moving away from defined benefit contribution schemes, ‘it will be a 30-40 year runoff’. He added that this demand is being moved over to master trusts, an increasingly popular type of pension scheme that combined the pension arrangements for multiple employers, as ‘they are lightly regulated at the moment but are set to become more regulated and more complex’.
Other UK firms have posted more subdued results, as yesterday (28 June) Watson Farley & Williams and RPC reported single digit revenue rises up 5% and 6% respectively. However specialist firms like tech firm Osborne Clarke (OC) and private wealth firm Forsters have seen double digit revenue growth, with OC seeing global revenues up by 23% to €191.6m to €236.3m, while Forsters posted a 11.3% rise in 2015/16 to £46.2m.
tom.moore@legalease.co.uk