Pinsent Masons‘ highest-paid LLP member took home 38% more last year than in 2013/14, as the firm posted double-digit growth across the board.
The firm’s latest accounts to April 2015 filed at Companies House show the highest remuneration to an individual LLP member leapt by £234,554 to £856,293. In 2014, the figure was £621,739.
Revenues for the 2014/15 financial year grew 12%, up from £323.5m to £363.6m, while profit available for division among members jumped 22% from £89m in 2013/14 to £109.4m last year. The firm also reported £20m cash in bank and in hand at 30 April 2015.
There was a net increase of just one to firm’s partnership, up to 331. There were decreases in both fee-earner headcount, where numbers fell by nine to 1,310, and secretarial and business support staff, where there was a net drop of 20 to 985. However, staff costs increased by around 4% to £161,877 from 2014’s figure of £134,844.
Managing partner John Cleland (pictured) said: ‘Our accounts reflect a positive year in which we reaped the rewards of several significant investments made over a number of years previously. It was an “investment light” year by our own standards and the current year is a different story – the market does not stand still and neither can we. We have opened offices in Sydney and Melbourne, developed a presence in Brussels and hired a team to lead our new office in Düsseldorf.
‘We have also continued to invest in innovation, as illustrated by the acquisition of a majority stake in Cerico, the online regulatory compliance solutions business. All of these are significant milestones as we move toward our vision of being recognised as an international market leader in the global sectors in which we operate.’
The firm made a record 29 promotions to partnership in May 2015. The majority of the hires were in four key sectors: energy, financial services, infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing and technology.
madeleine.farman@legalease.co.uk
For more on last year’s management changes and strategic challenges at Pinsent Masons, read our Q&A with John Cleland