National firm Shoosmiths has returned to its pre-financial crisis highs, breaking the £100m mark in revenues for the 2014/15 financial year and profit per equity partner (PEP) jumping 44% to £416,000.
Turnover at the top-50 firm grew 10% to £102.7m, returning to the level recorded in 2007/08 when the firm posted revenues of £103.4m and building on strong results last year which saw a 7% increase in revenue to £93m with PEP up 21% to £290,000.
The regionally-focused firm has also revealed it has taken permanent office space in London’s Tower 42, as of today (13 July). The firm has ten offices in total including the Tower 42 base, with its remaining nine offices spread across the UK in Birmingham, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Northampton, Thames Valley, Basingstoke, Southampton and Edinburgh.
The firm’s chief executive Claire Rowe (pictured) said the ‘stellar results’ boil down to the firm’s ‘sustained investment’ that has largely contributed to the firm’s growth in headcount. In the last three years, the firm appointed 46 new partners and increased its Birmingham and Manchester office headcount to 224 staff and 152 staff respectively. Shoosmiths also recently appointed its first non-executive director, Jeremy Horner.
‘We have also invested in various infrastructure and IT initiatives and these have been reflected in recent years’ accounts,’ said Rowe. ‘We have focused on building strong relationships with our clients and gaining a reputation for delivering quality legal advice which enables us to grow organically, particularly through recommendation.’
In April, Shoosmiths announced all its partners will move to an all-equity partnership from 1 May 2015 with 76 salaried partners becoming fixed-share, bringing the total number of equity partners to 126. Some 92% of the existing salaried partners chose to become members of the LLP as fixed share equity partners with the remaining 8% staying as salaried partners.
jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk
