Gide and Jeantet post hiked revenues for 2003

French firms Gide Loyrette Nouel and Jeantet Associés have recorded a steady increase in revenues in 2003.

Gide has boosted revenues by 7 per cent to E142m (£95.4m), while Jeantet increased turnover by 9.5 per cent to E28.9m (£19.4m).

Gide’s Paris office outshone the firm’s international network with revenues increasing 13.8 per cent to E124m (£83.3m).

The firm’s major achievement and its big investment this year has been the opening of its London office. Gide launched in London in June last year, with a four-partner raid on Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. By the year-end, the London office had attracted 35 lawyers and, although the office has yet to move into profit, it has reached break-even point and has exceeded expectations by billing around £2m in its first six months.

Managing partner Gerard Taverniér told The Lawyer that 50 per cent of the firm’s clients are non-French and that 40 per cent of the firm’s activities now lie outside its home country.

The London office is something of an anomaly in Gide’s international network. Taverniér has targeted developing countries that have a civil legal system and share

a political and economic synergy with France. London, by contrast, was opened in response to pressure from finance clients in France and central Europe, who were demanding a UK and US law capability.