While few global firms expect to emerge unscathed from the Covid-19 crisis, Eversheds Sutherland (International) has nevertheless followed many peers in reporting robust revenue and profit increases in the 2019/20 financial year.
The figures released on Thursday (30 July) for the non-US parts of the business struck a bullish tone, with revenue up a solid 8% to £592m from £548.8m last year and a net profit increase of 5% to £108.8m
Profit per equity partner (PEP) also saw a slight 2% uptick to £902,000 on the back of last year’s 9% uptick to £886,000.
Whereas chief executive Lee Ranson (pictured) was last year nervous of a market slowdown as a result of Brexit, what he called ‘the uncertainty barometer’ has now shifted towards gloomy thoughts of a pandemic fallout.
‘These are a good set of results which were delivered against a challenging global economic and geopolitical landscape, compounded in the last two months of the financial year by Covid-19,’ said Ranson in a statement.
‘Our strategy has continued to drive strong growth while allowing us to make a number of significant investments across the year, specifically in people, property and our core and client-facing IT offerings.
‘While the business has responded well to the challenges and uncertainty created by the pandemic, and adapted quickly to the changing priorities and needs of our clients, there is no doubt that the year ahead will be testing for us all given the high levels of uncertainty across the world,’ Ranson concluded.
The sentiment is one that would be circulating around the Square Mile if law firm leaders were not all stuck at home. With the pandemic appearing only on the tail end of the 2019/20 reporting period, it is anyone’s guess as to how it will pan out in the financials for the current year.
nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk
