Silver circle tarnished as financials slide
Equity partners at firms in the silver circle will be taking home a significantly lower share of profits following the 2008-09 financial year, with profit per equity partner (PEP) falling by an average of 34 per cent.
Charles Martin
Travers Smith, which has not yet finalised its figures for the past financial year, is expected to be the worst hit, with PEP expected to be 38 per cent down at around £470,000.
Ashurst and Macfarlanes both fell out of the million-pound PEP club, with the former reporting a 35 per cent drop, from £1.04m
in 2007-08 to £673,000.
At Macfarlanes a 31 per cent drop saw PEP fall from £1.1m last year to £846,000.
After a fall of 33 per cent, Berwin Leighton Painser’s (BLP) PEP stood at £414,000, down from £620,000.
At Macfarlanes, which saw revenue fall by 11 per cent, from £110m to £99m, senior partner Charles Martin said the numbers were indicative of a drop-
off in activity in the firm’s core practice areas.
“They reflect a downturn in important practice areas, such as private equity and real estate, and an increase in equity partner numbers,” he added.
It is expected that Travers will put in the worst turnover performance of the group given its dependence on the private equity market. It is understood that the firm will post a turnover drop of 20 per cent, down to £64.5m.
Ashurst’s turnover fell by 7 per cent to £301m, while BLP’s fell by 3 per cent to £180m.
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Readers' comments (15)
playfootsieforme | 28-Jul-2009 9:22 am
Maybe I should have been a bit more tactful. Doesn't change the fact that, now that all the leveraged nonsense of the last few years has dried up, the gap in quality between the magic circle and the silver circle is really starting to show.
And I haven't been made redundant from my MC job. No point starting ad hominem attacks. I might as well declare all the posters who have replied to my post to be chip-on-shoulder MC castoffs now working at silver circle firms.
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dats it | 29-Jul-2009 10:15 am
I guess SJ Berwin just exited the Silver Circle for the rubber ring.
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Anonymous | 29-Jul-2009 3:19 pm
Surely that means that BLP and Travers are to go too? Does this mean that Stephenson Harwood and DLA are now "silver circle"?
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Anonymous | 29-Jul-2009 4:11 pm
The term "silver circle" was dreamt up by some journalist who no doubt thought he/she was being creative when I suspect the reality was much more a seemingly inexhaustible need to pigeon hole things into neat boxes. The phrase is meaningless, has no definition, no basis and I cringe everytime I hear it used. "Magic circle" fine - it's understood and accepted (except by Herbert Smith I suspect) as the UK law firm elite in the same way that the charmed circle is in the US. Once people get their head around that we can move on from this pointless debate about membership criteria.
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Anonymous | 29-Jul-2009 4:29 pm
When will people stop saying that Herbert Smith is anywhere near the magic circle? They're nothing like the real MC firms. They're about half the size for a start.
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