Revenue Review: Camerons and Lovells Up, Ashurst and Eversheds Down
CMS Cameron McKenna was the first of the major London law firms to announce its 2008-09 results. Revenue was up by a slither at 2% but profits were down around 15%. So in real terms PEP has dropped from last year’s figure of £655,000 to £554,000 and total profits were down 14%, from £84m to £72m. Lovells has managed double-digit turnover growth at 11% thanks in large part to the decline of sterling against the dollar and the euro. Results …
CMS Cameron McKenna was the first of the major London law firms to announce its 2008-09 results. Revenue was up by a slither at 2% but profits were down around 15%. So in real terms PEP has dropped from last year’s figure of £655,000 to £554,000 and total profits were down 14%, from £84m to £72m.
Lovells has managed double-digit turnover growth at 11% thanks in large part to the decline of sterling against the dollar and the euro. Results for the 2008-09 year show that turnover increased from £479m in 2007-08 to £531m. Lovells estimates that the exchange rate changes boosted turnover by around 10%. PEP fell by 11.4% from £661,000 to £585,000. Continental Europe is Lovells’ largest revenue generator, contributing 43%, with the UK close behind on 42%, 5% in the US and the Middle East and Asia 10 per cent.
Ashurst has seen a 7% drop in turnover for the 2008-09; total revenue was £301m, which is down £22m from £323m at the end of the 2007-08 financial year. PEP figures are awaited.
Turnover at Eversheds has dropped by 6% from £390m to £366m. Average PEP has dropped by 26.8% over the last year. The firm’s PEP figure fell from £552,000 in 2007-08 to £404,000 during the last financial year. However, despite the falls, Eversheds is to lift its suspension of quarterly profit payouts to equity partners following a freeze of distributions that lasted six months. It is understood that the cycle will start again this month.
May 28, 2009
Interesting mix. Will be more interesting to see what happens this year.
May 28, 2009
Pretty large drops in profits given the relatively small drop in revenues. Esp Eversheds
May 28, 2009
@2
Redundancy charges
May 28, 2009
That is presumably why you are a lawyer (if you are even that) and not an accountant. Most of the revenue is taken up in costs; the small bit at the top that isn’t then equates to profit so even a slight change in overall revenue will mean a proportionately larger change in actual profit. Don’t forget all those redundancy charges also.