Addleshaw Goddard's PEP broke the £400,000 barrier after the national heavyweight recorded a second consecutive year of double-digit growth.

The firm reported a whopping 25 per cent hike in PEP, from £321,000 to £404,000. Partners at the top and bottom of equity are now taking home between £585,000 and £180,000. However, the 25 per cent rise was not matched by revenues, which increased by 12 per cent, from £125.2m to £139.7m.

Addleshaws' finance and projects practice recorded the biggest hike in fee income, rising from £20.6m to £26.5m. In contrast, corporate increased more modestly, from £24.2m to £26.5m.

The firm's profit success led to it abandoning the North-South divide in its equity structure by placing all new equity partners on the same number of entry points. Until May 2005, new equity partners at Addleshaws' northern offices entered the equity on 40 points, while City-based partners entered on 50. Now the firm has a 50-point entry level for all partners for the 2005-06 financial year.

The rapid growth Addleshaws has experienced since the May 2003 merger between legacy firms Addleshaw Booth & Co and Theodore Goddard looks set to continue, an ambition reflected in the plans to raise PEP above £500,000 in 2005-06.

Finances are managed very conservatively. Consequently, since the merger, it has slashed its £11.2m borrowings to zero. At the start of the current financial year it had £7m cash in the war chest.

Addleshaws' aim is to be a panel firm for 70 FTSE350 companies by 2009. Currently, the firm acts for 57 (before the merger it acted for 43). It also acts for another 25 FTSE350 clients but is not currently on those companies' panels.

In the past year, the firm has won an increasing amount of work from Travelodge, the Government, the Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank.