Osborne Clarke reports 7% revenue hike to €341m as PEP rebounds

UK PEP increases £100k to £714k after dropping 12% the previous year

While Osborne Clarke has moved its headquarters to London, it describes Bristol (pictured) as its home city Shutterstock

Osborne Clarke’s UK profit per equity partner increased 16% to hit £714k over its financial year to 30 April, having dipped 12% the year before to £614k, while firm-wide revenue grew 7% to €341m.

The London-based firm’s hike in revenue and PEP is broadly in line with the results reported so far by other top 50 UK firms – with the average being 6.7% and 17.8%, respectively.

Osborne Clarke’s international CEO Omar Al-Nuaimi described the results as “the outcome of a lot of dedication and hard work,” adding that: “Despite the challenging circumstances of the last year, our people maintained an excellent level of focus, always keeping clients' needs in mind and working alongside them as many grappled with rapidly evolving business models. We are so proud of their response.”

The firm saw UK revenue increase by 8% to reach £166.4m, with UK net profit also growing by 14% to hit £67.9m. Its four UK service lines all saw revenue growth, with disputes and risk seeing a 14% hike, business transactions 9%, projects, real estate and finance 3% and advisory 2%.

The firm had varied results across its different sectors, with technology, media and communications, its largest, seeing growth of 21%. That was followed by retail and consumer at 16%, energy and utilities at 8% and financial services at 7%. The firm said its other sectors remained “broadly flat but against strong performances in 2019/20.”

Al-Nuaimi highlighted Osborne Clarke’s international business, saying that since 2015/16 it has grown 9% year-on-year. The firm has also increased the number of multijurisdictional clients (served in five or more jurisdictions) by 83% and upped its cash resources by 14% to £41.1m.

The firm promoted 12 international partners in the last year and has hired Mikael Nelson as a partner in the TMC practice in Stockholm, Nassim Ghalimi to head the restructuring and insolvency team in Paris and Julia Kaufmann, an expert in IT and data protection law, as a partner in Munich.

Closer to home, the firm has added real estate partner Richard Wilkinson, restructuring and insolvency partner Douglas Hawthorn and life sciences patent litigation partner Tim Harris in London, as well as technology and life science focused venture capital partners Rob Hayes and Justin Starling in Reading.

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