It was a year of mixed fortunes for finance groups across the City, as the mega-restructuring mandates dried up - for the most part, at least.

Clifford Chance was the exception with its mammoth restructuring of British Energy, although most of that bill would have gone to the corporate group. Yet even taking British Energy out of the equation, Clifford Chance had its best year in banking since 2002, with a 12 per cent revenue hike to £223m. Even better, the group's profitability leapt by 25 per cent. Acquisition finance and bank lending brought in global fees of £71.4m, or 32 per cent of the group's total - up 5 per cent from 2004. Certainly, Clifford Chance, led by Mark Campbell, was highly visible in 2004-05, creaming virtually all of the biggest acquisition finance mandates in the City - from Philip Green's eventually abortive bid for Marks & Spencer for Citigroup, to advising JPMorgan on Malcolm Glazer's controversial bid for Manchester United. The Cognis saga also continued to generate good fees, with the firm advising on its latest recap in the summer of 2004, a deal which helped pioneer the second lien market. However, there was plenty of work on the meaty investment grade acquisition financing, such as the Bacardi-Grey Goose and Cemex deals.

Projects saw a slight recovery at 19 per cent (up 1 per cent) to £42m - a creditable enough performance given most firms' struggles in this sector. It partially reflects Clifford Chance's restructure of the group away from a technical projects offering to become energy sector specialists, as evidenced by major deals for International Power and Shell.

It was not all rosy. Despite British Energy, Clifford Chance's insolvency group's revenue dropped to £39.7m, or 17 per cent, while asset finance, at £24.5m, or 11 per cent of the total, suffered a major setback in 2004-05 when it missed getting on the Export Credit Agencies panel. The regulatory/derivatives group held steady at £33.5m, or 15 per cent, although it suffered some losses: Tim Herrington to the Financial Services Authority and a group of associates to Allen & Overy (A&O). Structured tax-based finance provided 6 per cent of the total.

Once again, London powered the group's revenue, with £107m of the total. But while Clifford Chance's finance performance was steady in Europe and Asia, the US merger delivered little to banking or capital markets. The loss of Margo Schonholz's insolvency team to Kaye Scholer shows how little Clifford Chance has really developed its US platform.

David Dunnigan's capital markets group also had a strong year, with a revenue of £119m. There were some firsts: it advised Depfa Bank on the first collateralised loan obligation (CLO) of PFI loans, for example, but it suffered a setback when its head of capital markets for Asia defected to Linklaters, swiftly followed by four lawyers from the same team.

Allen & Overy had a much less buoyant year, with its big rival Clifford Chance pulling away in market share. It also had a change of leadership, with Mike Duncan taking the senior role role in the department. A&O simply could not maintain its performance for the last couple of years. Banking revenue dropped £10m to £180m, underlining how dependent the firm has been on massive restructurings such as Marconi and Drax to boost its figures. A&O's drop also shows how vulnerable it has been to pricing pressures generated by contingent fee exposure - this in a firm which, according to several bankers, is among the least flexible on fees.

Despite backing the right horse in Italy on the Wind buyout (the biggest leveraged deal in Europe in 2005), the firm was rather less visable in London. A&O's various groups within banking exhibited profitability differences of 15 per cent; at the bottom end this year was the projects group, which suffered from the lows in the global market. The two brightest spots in A&O's year were its profile in the growing Islamic finance field and its hungry young asset finance group, which won a spot on the Export Credit Agencies panel.

A&O's capital markets group held steady with a turnover of £105m, although the fact that several partners left in the course of the year - including Julian Tucker to Shearman & Sterling and Angus Duncan to Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft - did not bode well. That said, A&O secured roles on many of the big commercial mortgage-backed securitisation (CMBS) deals, including the first conduit loan CMBS for Barclays Capital (BarCap). The mainstream debt group turned in a solid performance, but the US group was well down on the previous year. Even the derivatives group had a slight hiccup on its figures, although it met its revised budget.

At Linklaters, Giles White's finance group turned over £257.6m globally, up 12 per cent from £230.4m, with London accounting for £143.5m. However, the group's profit performance lost ground internally compared with corporate and commercial (IP, litigation and real estate). There were some high-profile acquisition finance deals with a strong second lien flavour, such as the £1.25bn Gala deal for Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Merrill lynch, and the £930m recap of Springer for BarCap.

That said, the capital markets team had an excellent year, working on 190 deals and generating a turnover of around £77.9m in London alone. The UK team also gained six new partners, taking the London practice up to 32. Nick Eastwell's team seemingly has few chinks in its armour. Deals included a $1.25bn (£680m) securitisation for Gazprom, the first assetbacked transaction from Russia, and a €750m (£508.8m) bond for the British Airport Authority (BAA). The London capital markets team was largely responsible for the strong UK revenue per partner figure of £2.14m.

After a promising boost in 2003-04, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer's finance group dropped in turnover, from £160m to £148m - a disappointing end to Simon Hall's stalwart tenure as finance head and something his replacement Perry Noble will have to address. The London finance group, which dropped around £6m in revenue, accounted for some £70m, while Asia was flat at best. On the positive side, Freshfields reeled in some decent panel wins, such as General Electric (GE) and Barclays. The refinancing market has been good for the firm: Ed Evans had an excellent year advising various corporates, while new partner Brian Gray worked on the Debenhams refinancing on the back of its leveraged buyout (LBO). Freshfields also had a decent year on restructuring, with big roles on Telewest and Primacom. The firm's German practice, led by Yorck Jetter, turned in a solid performance, not least because of its strong relationship with Deutsche Bank.

Lovells' international finance group held steady, with turnover at £99.9m barely moving from last year's £98m. Capital markets remained the jewel in the crown, with the group completing securitisations worth £23bn plus a decent streak of collateralised debt obligations (CDOs). Group head David Hudd was promoted to lead the overall finance group during the year, underlining the importance of the capital markets side. However, banking remains underweight, while the project finance group continues to suffer pricing pressures.

The finance practice at Norton Rose has had a turbulent time in the last few years. With acquisition finance no longer part of the core offering, the firm has refocused almost entirely on its solid business in projects and asset finance.

Turnover was up a very healthy 12 per cent to £76m, of which £56m was generated in London - most of the rest coming from the Middle East and Asia. Of the £56m, more than £40m was derived from projects and asset finance.

Simmons & Simmons' finance group grew 5 per cent to a global figure of £57m, with London providing £36m. Capital markets and hedge funds continued to be the firm's strong suit, bringing in £12m in London alone. The finance group continued with strong profits, with average profit per equity partner (PEP) north of £550,000, compared with a firmwide £385,000. Ashurst scored double-digit growth yet again this year, with global finance turnover jumping 17 per cent to £46.2m. Despite the volatility of the firm's European offering, there were plenty of European leveraged deals led from London. Nigel Ward's team advised on two of the biggest UK LBOs - Lehman Brothers and BarCap on the Saga acquisition and BarCap on the £1.35bn debt financing for the Centrica's acquisition of the AA. Erica Handling's CDO team, which now has a formal relationship with US structured finance specialist McKee Nelson, went great guns in both the cash and synthetic markets. It won JPMorgan as a client and advised Nomura on its first-ever cash arbitrage CDO.

Denton Wilde Sapte's finance practice is still weathering the storm surrounding the firm as a whole. There were few partner departures; the group's revenue inched up by £2m to £42m. But new managing partner and former finance head Howard Morris still has much to do to revitalise the former flagship department.

Herbert Smith gained a new finance chief in April, energy specialist Jason Fox, who aims to make the firm the fifth-ranking Londonbased finance practice in five years. A grand task, as global financial turnover rose to £22.5m, a rise of just 2.8 per cent, with London generating £8.9m. Project finance remains strong, the ongoing saga with Eurotunnel giving the firm its second-biggest client by billings. It also won London Regional Transport from Freshfields, working on the £2.1bn financing of Tube Lines. In property finance the firm won panel places with Royal Bank of Scotland and Lehman Brothers, but capital markets remains the least visible of the group's practice areas.

Despite the growing size of DLA, its banking and finance team remains one of the smallest in the UK, with a global turnover of £26.7m, for which the UK accounted for £14.8m. However, it boasts one of the tightest and best-respected leveraged finance teams in the London midmarket, and last year was appointed to the HSBC and GE panels for the first time.

US firms
For the first time, The Lawyer has collected information on US finance practices in London alongside UK firms' finance turnovers in the city to establish a meaningful comparison. There are far fewer UK firms handling sophisticated finance work, and City firms' competitors are the likes of Shearman & Sterling, Sidley Austin Brown & Wood and White & Case. There is no shock to see them all represented in the table.

With a turnover of £41.8m, White & Case is the eighth-largest finance practice in the UK. It certainly has one of the broadest offerings in the City, including acquisition finance, restructuring, structured finance and high-yield debt and projects. 2004 was dominated by the NTL and Telewest restructurings, which put the banking practice firmly on the map.

Sidley's structured finance practice gives the magic circle a run for its money. At £39m, the finance practice accounts for 95 per cent of the London business.

Shearman has a long-established practice in London with a solid projects backbone. It was visible on a number of big acquisition finance mandates, such as the Rexel deal. With an average revenue per partner (RPP) of £2.5m, it was second only to Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft. Finance represents nearly 60 per cent of the London office.

Cadwalader, meanwhile, carried on doing what it does best - restructuring work. It won The Lawyer's Finance and Restructuring Team of the Year Award at The Lawyer Awards 2005 for its role on British Energy and a myriad of other prickly deals and has recently beefed up capital markets in London in line with its New York practice.

Just missing out on London top 20 positions are Weil Gotshal & Manges and Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw (MBR&M). Weil turns over £12.4m in finance with an average RPP of £1m. MBR&M, which has a neat structured finance business in London, turns over £10.2m, with an average RPP of £1.02m.