Charles Russell Speechlys today (2 August) posted financial results that saw revenue tick up by 9% to hit £193.7m, while profit dipped by 8% to £37.1m. PEP also fell very slightly, from £524,000 to £521,000. The firm reported a total of 73 equity partners, down from 77 last year, while total lawyer headcount increased from 546 to 603.
Revenue from outside the UK was up 18%, after increasing by 24% last year. Overall growth across the UK’s sector teams was just below 7%, with the higher increase in the business advisory and transactions and dispute resolution divisions, which each grew by 9%. The private client division, meanwhile, saw revenue increase by 4%.
‘We’re very pleased with the revenue growth’, said managing partner Simon Ridpath, ‘particularly as it was consistent across all parts of the business. We didn’t end up with the figures that we were necessarily aiming for. But if we look at the four quarters of last year, before Trussonomics kicked in, the first two were really good. Q3 was very tough, but Q4 was just about on-budget again.’
CRS is now entering the fourth year of its five-year strategy and intends to further link up its transactional and private client offerings. ‘Our private client advisory practice is the largest of our four main business groups’, said Ridpath, ‘and that’s an area that remains busy when there’s political disruption, so it was a nice natural hedge for us over the last year.’
On this front, CRS will launch its private office in September, under the leadership of former Barclays Private Bank single family office & cross-group coverage lead Marcus Yorke-Long. This will provide clients with what Ridpath referred to as ‘time off the clock’ – a broader range of advisory services.
The firm opened a new office in Singapore in early July and plans to use it as ‘a hub’ to advise clients, including family businesses, on investments into other jurisdictions. Ridpath also noted the firm’s recent hire of Thomas Snider as new head of international arbitration in the Dubai office. ‘The arbitration market in Singapore is obviously growing a lot, and about half of Thomas’s practice is in Singapore arbitration, so we’ll be able to get started in that work very quickly.’
In the Middle East, too, CRS is looking to expand. ‘We’ve just landed a new partner in Doha, and we’re looking to build up there, to pivot towards what Qatar is trying to achieve post-World Cup.’
For Ridpath, the focus is on developing existing offices rather than opening new ones. ‘The scope for growth is in those non-UK offices. But we’re not looking to open any new offices in the next 12 months.
‘Over the next five years, we’re looking to get non-UK revenues up to about 50% of the total.’
