Merger purge

With average profit per equity partner falling 36 per cent to £232,000 (see story), the firm’s partners now earn around the same as those at regional players such as Dickinson Dees, Pannone and Bond Pearce.

This from a firm that has ranked in the UK top 20 practically every year since it was created by the 2000 merger of Denton Hall and Wilde Sapte.

Yet UK CEO Matthew Jones, who last month admitted to The Lawyer that the EMEA business’s financials would make for grim reading (see feature), remains upbeat, stating that the firm is “budgeting for a substantial turnaround this year”.

As things stand, Dentons’ 2010 merger with Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal has done little to bolster the UK firm’s fortunes, but Jones is counting on “collaboration across our geographies, supported by the new global co-ordination of our eight sectors” to drive the turnaround.

Let’s hope he can carry the partnership with him.

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Also on TheLawyer.com: Mayer Brown launches in Singapore; turnover and PEP up at DWF; and two make partner in Bakers’ City base.