Nabarro’s pension deficit reduced by more than half, from £31.9m to £12.2m in the last financial year, the firm’s LLP accounts have revealed.
The firm, which is due to merge with CMS Cameron McKenna and Nabarro next May, has struggled to bring down its pensions deficit in the past. Sources stated the deficit has caused previous merger talks to collapse.
The accounts show Nabarro paid £4.4m into its pension scheme last year in a bid to reduce the deficit more rapidly than its previous recovery plan, which was agreed in 2014.
However the deficit dropped thanks to an actuarial valuation carried out in April that knocked £20m off the scheme’s liabilities. The assets in Nabarro’s pension scheme increased by just £500,000 over the financial year, with the liability dropping from £111m to £92m.
Nabarro said it anticipates to pay another £5.25m in to the scheme in the current financial year.
The LLP filings also show Nabarro’s highest earning partner received £944,000 in 2015/16, down on the previous year’s £966,000 payment.
It also shows the firm had 393 fee-earners across the year and 320 staff, with staff costs totalling £47m. The firm’s turnover increased to £129.5m in 2015/16, while profit dropped from £50.5m to £46.7m.
The filings will be the last Nabarro posts as a single entity. The firm is set to move into CMS Cameron McKenna’s Cannon Place headquarters next year when the merger goes live. The three-way merger will create a combined firm with revenues of almost £1bn, including CMS’s European network. In the UK it will post revenues of around £450m.
