Taylor Wessing has joined a band of leading City firms to have turned out a double digit increase in revenue for the 2013/14 half year (H1), unveiling a 10% increase in its UK turnover.
The 960-lawyer firm has credited extensive investment, including international expansion and a series of lateral hires for the uptick in its performance, which internationally saw its H1 revenues increase by 9%.
Commenting on the results, managing partner Tim Eyles (pictured) told Legal Business: ‘This is a credible performance. Being up double digits in this market is very pleasing, its consistent with where we hope to be, and reflects a performance that’s pretty good across all our jurisdictions.
‘We’ve also had an active lateral hire programme. It’s something we wish to continue with and be proactive in general on geographical coverage, industry focus and lateral hiring; these are some of the explanations for the pleasing start to the year.’
The top 20 firm has seen a strong performance from its litigation team and an uptick in transactional activity, and Eyles added: ‘There’s also improvement in corporate, real estate, finance and our intellectual property practice is performing well. We’re quietly confident for the New Year.’
In late May the firm announced a 7% 2012/13 global revenue increase from £212m to £288m, while UK revenue grew by 4% to £104.5m.
Taylor Wessing has seen its partnership grow by 15% to 365 in the last financial year, after making 15 lateral hires and 16 promotions globally. It also added a number of offices throughout Europe and Asia, including Bratislava, Brno, Budapest, Kiev, Klagenfurt, Prague, Singapore, Vienna and Warsaw. This heavy investment came on the back of its merger with Austria-based enwc in May last year. More recently, the firm launched in Jakarta via a cooperation agreement with local law firm Hanafiah Ponggawa & Partners (HPRP) in October.
These latest H1 results follow a swathe of positive reports from LB100 firms, including Olswang, which saw revenue up by 15% to £57.6m and Osborne Clarke, up by 12% to €71.6m.
Elsewhere, Bird & Bird this morning attributed a 5% increase in its half-year revenues to the strengthening of its international offering, and newly-merged Ashurst also today reported a 5.8% increase in turnover during the first half of 2013/14 to £298m, attributing the rise to improved economic conditions and an uptick in transactional work.
Sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk
