Eversheds Sutherland has posted a 5.3% increase in revenue to $1.270m (£918m) for its global business in 2020 alongside even stronger growth for its international business of 6%.

The results combine the transatlantic firm’s global turnover for the 2020 calendar year with headline results for legacy UK firm Eversheds’ business for the 20/21 financial year.

The 6% increase in revenue for the firm’s non-US operations to £629m translated into a 9% rise in profit per equity partner (PEP) to £984,000. It is the fourth consecutive year of PEP growth for the international business in the four full financial years since the 2017 merger between Eversheds and Sutherland Asbill & Brennan. 

The firm joins other UK rivals posting strong growth figures despite the uncertainty brought on by the pandemic, including Pinsent Masons, Herbert Smith Freehills, and Fieldfisher, which all recorded similar eye-catching spikes in PEP. 

Lee Ranson, chief executive of Eversheds Sutherland International, said: “This performance, achieved in the most challenging of circumstances, is the result of the continued commitment and hard work of everyone at the firm. I could not be more proud of how our people responded to the challenges of the last year.”

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Highlights over the last financial year include last month’s tie-up with Portugese firm FCB and its associated offices in Angola and Mozambique. The move added more than 70 lawyers, including 19 partners, to Eversheds’ global partnership network, allowing it to expand its footprint into three new markets and deepen its practice for clients in Africa and Latin America. 

The firm also elevated 22 lawyers to its partnership in April, promoting ten lawyers in the UK and eleven across its European offices, as well as one lawyer in Hong Kong. The firm highlighted that one in ten of its new UK partners are of an ethnic minority, supporting its goal of having 10% of UK partners be minority ethnic by 2025. Nine of the new partners were women, representing 41% of the new partner cohort. 

Speaking on the firm’s next steps, Ranson said: “As we look to the future, we are committed to continuing our programme of significant strategic investment such as the roll-out of our new document and practice management systems, to building true global alignment and to continued recruitment in key practice areas and geographies”.