Strong half-year sales growth for DWF
MERGERS have helped law firm DWF achieve half-year income growth of 39%.
The firm, which has an office in Leeds, said turnover grew to £59m in the six months to October.
Since last November the firm has acquired Scotland-based Biggart Baillie, Crutes in the North East and Buller Jeffries in the Midlands. The firm now employs 1,800 staff in 11 locations. Like-for-like revenue was up 7.6% during the period.
Managing partner and chief executive Andrew Leaitherland said: “It would have been easy for us to stand still this year, but we made a conscious decision to seize an opportunity and grow. Quite simply, we will be successful by improving standards and by raising the bar around client service. If we get that right our clients will prosper and so will we.
“The people at DWF are ultimately the reason behind our success and we are committed to a strategy of continual reinvestment that will see investments made in both our legal experts and business support teams.”
He added: “We have ambitions to be a top 20 law firm by 2015 and our strong internal values, talented people, and commitment to working closely with our expanding portfolio of clients means we have a solid platform to build on and meet these targets.”
DWF said recruitment grew by 11% during the period with the creation of 200 positions. In the year to April 30 the firm reported a 21% increase in net profit and a 24% rise in revenues to £102m. Profit per equity partner was over £415,000 for the first time in the firm’s history.
A team from the Leeds office of DWF advised Alchemy Investment Group as it completed the takeover of Port Vale Football Club earlier this week.
Corporate partner Lester Wilson said: “Port Vale has been in administration for quite some time but hopefully this deal will secure the club’s future.
“It was very pleasing to see that the administrators, the Football League, Alchemy and Stoke on Trent Council worked expeditiously together to get the deal over the line in the interests of the club and the supporters.”
