Linklaters’ top-earning partner in the 2010-11 financial year took home £2.2m, the firm’s latest LLP accounts show.
The figure is some £641,000 above the £1.559m top-of-equity figure the firm posted for the financial year.
The LLP accounts, filed this week at Companies House, state that the sum paid to a member “can be substantially above that of a member of full profit entitlement because of compensation for such costs as tax and accommodation payable to members on secondment to other jurisdictions, or because of payments associated with joining or retiring from Linklaters LLP”.
The £2.2m figure is the same as last year’s, the accounts say. The 2009-10 amount was in itself down on the £2.5m earned by the highest-paid partner in 2008-09. The top-earning partner took home £3.4m in 2007-08 (11 December 2008), when the magic circle firm first filed LLP accounts after converting to the legal structure.
The firm turned over £1.197m in 2010-11. Operating profit was £372.4m, profit before members’ remuneration and profit shares was £348.2m, and profit for division among members was £343.8m.
This last figure is much lower than the £514m the firm initially posted as its net profit for the 2010-11 year because the earnings of partners not classified as members of the LLP are treated as an expense and subtracted for the profit figure.
The firm says there are a number of reasons for partners not to be classed as LLP members, including rules in foreign jurisdictions that prevent partners on the ground from being members of the entity.
Staff costs rose 2.5 per cent from £542.7m to £556.8m, while average staff numbers dropped marginally from 4,412 to 4,349. Fee-earner numbers dropped 1.8 per cent from 2,283 to 2,242, with support staff numbers falling marginally from 2,129 to 2,107.
Salary costs increased by 2.2 per cent on 2009-10, while social security costs dropped by just under 4 per cent. The firm spent nearly 35 per cent more on staff pensions, with the total figure rising from £9.26m in 2009-10 to £12.49m in the 2010-11 year.
Linklaters declined to comment.
Readers' comments (25)
Aninda Chowdhury, Corporate lawyer, India | 7-Dec-2011 6:13 am
MC associate - Couldn't agree more than what you have said.
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Anonymous | 7-Dec-2011 7:33 am
The resentment about someone in the City earning money and the comparison to a “teacher” or a “nurse” is now getting far too boring and clichéd.
Don’t get me wrong – I do believe that public sector workers have very important role in our society and I do applaud them for what they do. That does not mean that a person working in the City and earning this money did not deserve to do so. During my 5 years in the City, I have seen a colleague who had worked so hard that he started coughing blood at his desk (yes literally!); a colleague who spent more than 100 hours at work without any sleep (that is coming in on a Monday morning and leaving the office on the Friday without having a wink of sleep in between); a colleague who collapsed unconscious because of the number of hours she had worked and after she woke up, she immediately started sending emails to ensure that work is not stalled because she was in the hospital; and finally a different colleague who had a nervous break-down. Each of these colleagues were pushing themselves to become a partner at our MC firm. I have no doubt that if you walk down the corridors of other MC firms you will hear similar stories.
I do not expect any sympathy or support for these colleagues or their style of life or work, but what I do not agree is that these people do not deserve the money they make, merely because they work in the City! These are highly driven individuals, who continue to push limits.
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Anonymous | 7-Dec-2011 11:28 am
@Anonymous 7.33 am- I agree with everything you've said. Re the publlic sector, there was a great programme on BBC2 last week: "your money and how they spend it"- people like this guy pay probably 60% of what they earn in tax. He is no doubt in the top 1% of earners in this country and that 1% supports practically all of the rest of the country. Its easy in this duscussion to equate anyone who earns £1m+ with bankers (so they must be bad) but it simply isn't true- not all rich people are bankers in fact (nor are all bankers rich, by the way). To be at the top in a firm like Links, this guy has worked his guts out for years and years and has made a massive financial contribution to society just in tax. Iit is surprising, by the way, how many people like this also feel driven to make other contributions, whether charitable or otherwise. He's no hero and you can probably accuse him of derangement for (what I assume is) his lifetsyle, but I don't think you can criticise him too heavily...
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Anon | 8-Dec-2011 9:55 am
MC Associate - wow, your examples were well scary. It is a shame that motivation and ambition push people to their limits and beyond by the sound of it. As to the " I can't believe all these money etc." comments: we are talking of a person that has put in the work and effort to gain high remuneration so why would you criticise him? The target of hatred should be privileges, rewards that are not linked to hard work and wealth production. How many people work for that partner? How much support does his team need? The consequences of being a top performer are multifold. Please point your finger at something else.
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Anonymous | 8-Dec-2011 11:05 am
@ MC Associate
Have you ever stopped to consider that you and the people described by Anonymous 7:33 am are actually suffering from mental illness?
To be so `motivated' by money and what you appear to perceive as `success' demonstrates a sadly deficient and unbalanced personality that is probably trying to compensate for a lack of love and security in your life.
You must realise that you can never achieve happiness via this route, as whatever you achieve will never be good enough for you. You have to keep re-setting the targets in order to give your life some purpose.
The big truth you have to learn is that your work is of no real importance. It's just shuffling money around. Someone else can do it, and nobody will remember you when you're gone just for doing this pointless work.
Why not consider doing something useful, even if it means that you have to stop and reflect on what life is really about. You're obviously intelligent and well-educated, why waste it on such a pointless and empty existence?
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