Watson Farley & Williams (WFW) has re-elected its management duo for a further five years.
Chris Lowe and Lothar Wegener (pictured right to left) have been re-elected as the UK firm’s managing partners for a second term, beginning 15 January next year. The pair have held the roles since January 2014, with WFW’s revenue up 60% over the last five years, one of the strongest performances among a top 50 UK practice.
The re-elections coincide with the 500-lawyer firm posting a 2018/19 half-year revenue of £85.9m, the same as last year. Fees paid were down slightly to £74.6m from £76.1m, however. Wegener said the firm was nevertheless on track to meet its annual growth target of at least 5%.
In July, WFW said revenue for the 2017/18 full-year was £162.9m, up 3% on the previous record-breaking period when revenue grew 20%.
Lowe commented: ‘We are energised at the prospect of a further term. Our re-election represents a strong commitment by the firm to its investment culture together with the ambition to achieve sustainable quality growth.’
WFW also announced today (14 December) that it had hired Ince & Co’s head of Greek law, George Iatridis, in Greece. He follows other former Ince partners Antonis Lagadianos and Evangelos Catsambas, who join WFW next year. The shipping and disputes specialist Ince is currently gearing up for a merger with listed law firm Gordon Dadds.
WFW, which specialises in serving the energy, transport and real estate sectors, has been one of the UK’s leading mid-tier firms in recent years, and was profiled alongside Fieldfisher and Osborne Clarke (OC) in Legal Business’ ‘Reversal of fortunes’ cover feature in 2017. Fieldfisher announced its half-year results last month, revealing a 26% uptick in revenue to £97m.
hamish.mcnicol@legalease.co.uk
For more on Watson Farley see last year’s cover feature, Reversal of fortunes (£)
