Latham & Watkins has held on to its position as the largest overseas-headquartered firm in the UK market despite Baker & McKenzie posting an increase in its UK revenue to $220.25m, this week’s UK 200: the Top 100 reveals.
Partly as a result of a concerted lateral hiring campaign, but also off the back of a frenetic period of deal activity, Latham last year saw its UK office revenue rise by 27 per cent, from $210.6m to $267m.
In the process it dislodged Baker & McKenzie from the head of the table earlier this year. Bakers’ UK operation, which has a 30 June financial year-end and therefore reports later than Latham, has failed to regain its crown over the summer after growing its UK revenue by just 1.5 per cent to $220.25m (£140m).
Bakers’ 82-partner UK operations did, however, continue its track record of growth in the UK. The firm appeared on several significant matters, notably advising Towers Watson on the corporate and tax matters of its $18bn merger with Willis; FedEx on its €4.4bn bid for TNT; and the lenders on the £1.35bn financing of the Battersea Power Station, one of the largest real estate financings in the UK in recent years.
Bakers also made several notable hires during the year including Kate Alexander, who joined the corporate tax team from EY and Jonathan Peddie, who joined the disputes and corporate investigations group from Barclays.
The latter hire in particular is a coup for Bakers, with Peddie understood to have been courted by many of the major firms in London during his time at Barclays.
Bakers also underscored its focus on and commitment to the UK when in August 2014 it opened a global services centre in Belfast, the firm’s second such office which has now grown to 120 people in the space of a year.
Paul Rawlinson, Bakers’ London managing partner, said his firm had had “a good year”.
“We saw steady growth in London, had some significant client wins and were involved in a number of high-profile deals,” added Rawlinson. “We also continued to grow in headcount terms through organic, internal promotion and significant, high-profile laterals.”
Rawlinson says Peddie in particular was “a stellar addition” to Bakers.
“Jonathan brings his sophisticated perspective to clients and will be just as valuable to clients in non-banking sectors,” says Rawlinson. “He will play a lead role in the investigations and broad commercial litigation practices.”
An edited version of this year’s full International Top 30 report is included in this week’s UK 200: the Top 100, along with an updated table. This table also includes the most recent financial results of Australian-headquartered Slater & Gordon, which last year posted a UK turnover of $178m, a rise of 8 per cent on the previous year.
This year’s full International Top 30 Firms in London report, which was published in June, is the most comprehensive The Lawyer has ever produced and it reveals a market in rude health.
Last year, the leading group of overseas-headquartered firms in the UK generated a total revenue of $3.83bn (£2.48bn). This is 13 per cent up on the $3.38bn generated in 2013 and an increase of 34 per cent since 2010, when the Top 30 generated $2.85bn.
The full International Top 30 report includes detail not only on the top 30 firms’ financial performance over the past 12 months, but also an in-depth analysis of their record since 2010.
More pertinently, in the interests of any firm wishing to track its performance relative to its closest international competitors, for the first time it also compares the Top 30 international firms in peer groups (New York Elite, Global Business and Legacy UK, in which the total revenues are $907.8m, $1.529bn and $1.393bn respectively) in order to better assess their progress over the past five years.
