High-profile mandates hike Osborne’s revenue

Osborne Clarke’s turnover growth of 15 per cent to £95m from £82.8m the previous year was underpinned by a series of high -profile deals.

Managing partner Simon Beswick said the firm strategically repositioned itself to pick up more profitable deals. This included advising on the £502m sale of Datamonitor to Informa and representing Lloyds TSB Development Capital on the £410m sale of Apollo Group Holdings.

“The main thing is that we’ve moved up the hierarchy in terms of the quality of deals we’re doing and their profitability,” he said. The firm is anticipating a slowdown in corporate deals in the coming year, but Beswick believes the firm is well placed to weather this.

“We hope the progress we’ve made in moving our market position will help protect us from any slowdown,” he said. “We pride ourselves on building up niche practice areas.”

The firm’s technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) practice completed three-quarters of the TMT deals in the UK in the last year, added Beswick.

“We do very well in different industry sectors – in the old days it would be focused on TMT,” Beswick said.

“Today we trade in seven or eight industries, so we have a broad base to protect us if one area slows down.”