Spanish firm Garrigues has revamped its management and partnership structure at the same time as announcing a slight increase in revenue figures for financial year 2010-11.
The firm has made up 152 partners to full equity status. This brings the total number of full equity partners to 258 out of a total partnership of 273.
In addition, the firm has made up 23 new partners directly to the equity across its regional offices. The Madrid office has received seven additional equity partners, while Barcelona has gained three and Lisbon and Seville have added two apiece.
The offices in Alicante, Bilbao, La Coruña, Malaga, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, San Sebastián, Valencia and Valladolid have all added one equity partner each. The La Coruña office has also gained two non-equity partners.
As part of the revamp the firm, which until 31 August was led by joint managing partners Fernando Vives and Ricardo Gómez-Barreda, how has just Vives as sole managing partner.
One senior partner - Gómez-Barreda - will handle institutional relations, oversee the implementation of partner decisions resolutions, deal with conflicts of interest and advise Vives whenever necessary.
Garrigues has also set the voluntary retirement age for partners at 60, subject to a two-year transitional period. Until last year voluntary retirement could be taken at 56, with the mandatory retirement age being set at 62.
The news comes as the firm reports turnover of €355.2m (£312.3) for the year to 31 August 2011. This figure is up nearly one per cent on the 2009-10 figure, which stood at €352.8m (£310.3m).
“In our opinion, the growth of this past year, almost one per cent, has been extremely positive,” said managing partner Fernando Vives.
“We’ve reduced or closed some practice areas or offices that were not profitable. Such is the case of our office in Bucharest, where we centralised all the activity of Eastern Europe within our Warsaw office. These measures have had a negative impact in our revenue of more than one percentage point.”
Garrigues concluded its activities in Romania at the end of 2010 (29 November 2010).
