As financial reporting season enters full swing, Taylor Wessing has become the latest firm to report punchy double-digit growth for 2021/22, with UK revenue surging 25% to £219.3m.
UK profits also increased 32% to £93m while UK profit per equity partner (PEP) has reached a record high, increasing by 27%. The firm did not disclose its PEP figure but such an increase would put PEP firmly in the region of £800,000.
Globally, Taylor Wessing’s financials tell a similarly bullish story with a top line of £420.6m, up 13% from 371.3m last year, marking the firm’s fourth year of record international revenue growth.
Core sector strengths of technology, life sciences and healthcare were largely to thank for the gains, while it also reported significant growth in other key sectors of real estate and private wealth.
Shane Gleghorn (pictured), UK managing partner and global co-chair, told Legal Business: ‘The success was down to across the board performance, but it was underpinned by tech and life sciences. The transaction flow has been very strong in the last two years, both on the buy and sell side, and we have been at the very forefront of those.’
Standout mandates include acting for The Roald Dahl Story Company on its sale to Netflix, a deal which brought together the firm’s private wealth and tech sector capabilities. The firm also advised subscription-based investment platform interactive investor on its £1.5bn sale to FTSE 100 investment company abrdn and acted for robo-advice business Nutmeg on its acquisition by JPMorgan Chase.
The Netherlands and France have also been jurisdictions of growth while the Germany office is credited for its strong performance, particularly in corporate and patents. Gleghorn also highlighted its three-partner Cambridge office, which includes Ross McNaughton, Tasmina Goraya and Adrian Toutoungi: ‘It’s a small office but is capturing a really good market share and there are some really interesting transactions coming out of the region. There is such fantastic work being done in biotech and digital health in that area.’
Auspicious performance has been reflected in employees being awarded a 5% profit share for the second year, in addition to annual performance bonus payments of up to 30% of salaries. The firm also increased NQ salaries from £81,000 to £95,000 in London earlier this year.
Notwithstanding economic headwinds, Gleghorn is sanguine: ‘We’re going into a recessionary environment and that will change some aspects of the way we approach the market, but broadly, we will double down on the four areas in which we are best known. Corporate life sciences and digital health as well as corporate tech will continue to be strong for us, as will IP, structured real estate and private equity, but we will also have a renewed emphasis on restructuring and litigation.’
