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Linklaters

Linklaters delivers record financial performance

Releasing our financial results for the year ended 30 April 2024, we have delivered strong global growth with record revenue and profit levels, driven by investments in strategic priority areas.

Key overview

  • Revenue hit a record £2.1bn, a 10% increase on FY2023 and exceeded £2bn for the first time
  • Highest ever pre-tax profit of £942m, an increase of 10.3% on last year
  • Profit per all Partners was £1.8m representing a 7% increase and Profit per Equity Partner was up 8% at £1.9m
  • Strong performance across our global network, in particular the US which had its best ever results delivering a 24% increase in revenue and the UK which also had its best ever year
  • We hit its annual diversity target of 40% female and 15% underrepresented minority ethnic newly elected partners
  • 55,000 hours globally on pro-bono work – our highest ever

Paul Lewis"Its been an exceptional year with record financial results and revenues exceeding £2bn for the first time. We’ve seen a strong performance across the firm, with M&A, complex restructurings, contentious mandates and energy transition-linked projects the biggest drivers of growth.

In what remain challenging markets for businesses, our corporate, bank, funds and financial investor clients continue to turn to our global platform on their biggest, cross-border mandates, like advising VW on its recent landmark US$5bn partnership with Rivian in the US. These are the roles that have placed us top of league tables across the UK, Europe and Asia, as well as powering our UK and US offices to their best ever year.

With markets now bouncing back, particularly on the public M&A front, our teams have had a very busy start to the year, acting on lots of high-profile roles in the market. We’ll continue to invest to make sure we deliver the best service for our clients on their biggest transactions and most complex legal matters in key jurisdictions."

Paul Lewis, Firmwide Managing Partner

Delivering on large, complex, cross-border deals

Despite a market slowdown, we had a strong year – advising on US$133bn worth of deals in 2023 and 5 of the top 10 carve-outs in Europe. In 2024, the strong run has continued, with Refinitiv ranking our Corporate platform 1st for UK and 2nd in Europe (announced deals in H1) and having just been awarded Corporate Team of the Year 2024 at The Lawyer awards.

We have been at the forefront of the M&A market bounce back in 2024, particularly in the UK where we have advised on four £1bn+ public deals in the market – Barratt/Redrow, Spirent/Keysight, Anglo American/BHP, Mondi/DS Smith. And over the past five years we have advised on more competing UK bids than any other law firm.

We have also topped Refinitiv's rankings in APAC and MENA for the first half of this year. The equities team has also been busy and is currently ranked 1st – by value and volume – for European IPOs with recent roles on Raspberry Pi, Puig and CVC Capital Partners.

Acting on business-critical contentious mandates

Our Litigation, Arbitration and Investigations Division delivered record results and rankings in FY24 – leading on landmark settlements and appeals, including key competition litigation mandates for Visa and acting for Experian on one of the most significant UK data protection challenges and appeals to date. We also received 12 Band 1 rankings, including recognition in the Chambers Global APAC Arbitration Elite for the first time – click here for our 100+ Chambers Global rankings.

Undertaking the most complex restructurings

As anticipated, restructuring and insolvency activity has increased across global markets and we have been at the forefront of supporting clients. Complex mandates across the network have seen: our US/London/Amsterdam team advising on the cross-border restructuring of McDermott International, and its Asia team advising Country Garden on its offshore debt restructuring – one of the most highly anticipated restructurings in the China real estate space, as well as the US$7bn Aoyuan restructuring.

We were ranked Band 1 for Restructuring & Insolvency Europe-wide in Chambers Global 2024, Band 1 for Restructuring and Insolvency in Chambers UK 2024 and Tier 1 for Corporate Restructuring & Insolvency in Legal 500 UK 2024.

Leading the market on energy transition

Our Energy & Infrastructure practice has had another stand-out year and continues to work on the most complex and large-scale transactions – leading on five of the Top 10 European Energy Transition Project Financings and the two largest in Asia, including advising on the cUS$6bn project financing of the Hai Long offshore wind project in Taiwan and advising Yunneng Wind Power on the restructuring of its €2.9bn financial debt and recapitalisation.

Our practice continues to dominate global rankings, ranked no.1 on Global Infrastructure Finance, Global Renewables Financing, Global Mining Infrastructure Financing, Global Telecoms Infrastructure Financing and European Power Infrastructure Financing (deal value and volume) by IJ Global 2023, with 158 deals worth a total of US$153.2bn. We also won 15 awards at IJGlobal Awards and was ranked as Band 1 in Chambers Global for multijurisdictional global projects and energy.

We have seen a 24% increase in US revenue in FY24 and adding to our strong global M&A platform, we hired a market-leading US M&A team led by rainmaker George Casey and Heiko Schiwek in New York. The US team has been working closely with our leading M&A partners across the network to deliver cross-border mandates in the US, including Dr. Ralph Wollburg in Germany on Volkswagen's landmark US$5bn partnership with Rivian, and Simon Branigan, Lisa Chang and Namrata Shah in the UK on Tate & Lyle's proposed US$1.8bn acquisition of CP Kelco’s US, China and Denmark divisions.

We have continued to invest in our comprehensive technology stack to ensure we bring real, measurable value to clients. We are integrating Microsoft 365’s Copilot globally alongside our existing bench of technology and generative AI tools including, Laila, our self-built chatbot which has almost 6,000 unique users globally across the firm, and Google’s Cloud Vertex AI platform. We also rolled out mandatory training on generative AI in April this year, providing foundational training for all of our staff.

CreateiQ 2.0, the latest evolution of our contract lifecycle management solution, also launched earlier this year with enhanced features and user-centric improvements – designed to further streamline processes, mitigate risks, and drive efficiency.

We elected 27 new partners and promoted 49 new counsel across our global platform on 1 May 2024. We achieved our diversity targets: 40% of new partner promotions were female and 15% under-represented minority ethnic (UK & US). Recent accolades we have received for our focus on diversity as a key driver of performance have included: ranking 6th in the UK’s Social Mobility Employer Index, featuring in The Times’ Top 50 Employers for Gender Equality for the 11th consecutive year and a Top 10 Employer the 2023 Hong Kong LGBT+ Inclusion Index, amongst others.

We delivered 55,000 hours globally on pro-bono work – the highest ever for Linklaters and were also named a top five responsible law firm in the Lamp House Strategy Annual Review.

Excelling for clients
Strengthening our global platform
Investing in generative AI and new technologies
Investing in people and delivering positive social impact
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