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Linklaters

Record revenue for Linklaters leads to strong financial performance

Linklaters has announced a strong financial performance for the year ended 30 April 2023, with record revenue of £1.9 billion driven by continued client demand for complex cross-border legal advice.

Key overview

  • Revenue hit a record £1.9 billion, a 6.6% increase on FY2022
  • Revenue growth from £1.6 billion to £1.9 billion over two years
  • Pre-tax profit, excluding exceptional items, of £854 million, a 2% decrease from £872 million in FY2022 owing to material exceptional costs for Moscow closure in FY2022
  • Pre-tax profit, including exceptional items, of £845 million – in line with FY2022
  • Profit per Equity Partner of £1.779 million and Profit per all Partners £1.704 million
  • £18 million in charitable contributions and 65,000 volunteering hours globally

Paul Lewis

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We’re pleased to have delivered a strong financial performance, despite a challenging high-inflation environment and ongoing geopolitical instability. Our continued revenue growth reflects that in difficult conditions the world’s leading corporates, banks and financial sponsors look to us for the quality of advice we bring to their most strategically important matters.”

Paul Lewis, Firmwide Managing Partner

Further strengthening our partner teams in the areas of greatest importance for clients has delivered strong growth in high-end M&A, restructuring and insolvency, global contentious mandates, complex financings and energy transition.

We have seen significant growth in revenue from high-end M&A with roles on some of the market’s biggest and most complex transactions. These include advising:

  • Carrier Global Corporation on the acquisition of Viessmann Climate Solutions for €12bn – one of the largest transactions in the German M&A market;
  • Thermo Fisher on buying diagnostics firm Binding Site for $2.6 bn – involving a global Linklaters team across 14 offices and our Australian alliance firm, Allens;
  • HSBC on the CA$13.5bn sale of its banking business in Canada to Royal Bank of Canada.

Impressive growth in our energy sector this year has been driven in large part by global energy transition, which accounted for seven of the firm’s ten largest energy matters. The addition of our Energy & Infrastructure team in the US during the year, completes our global energy transition coverage and is already resulting in client wins. Standout examples of energy transactions include advising:

  • National Grid on the sale of a 60% stake in its UK gas transmission and metering business – the largest UK carve-out of 2022;
  • Actis on the establishment of a US$500m new renewables platform in Japan;
  • Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board on a partnership with Corio Generation to develop a global offshore wind portfolio of up to 9GW of offshore wind projects across South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Ireland and the UK.

We elected 41 new partners and 53 counsel across our global network in our latest promotion round, meeting our 40% global gender diversity target for female partner promotions and our 15% target for under-represented minority ethnic partners in new partner elections annually (UK & US). Holding ourselves accountable for our stretching DE&I goals, we published our 2022 Race Action Plan report detailing the concrete actions we have taken towards our goal of being an anti-racist firm, including introducing billable credit and recognition for diversity, equity and inclusion contribution.

To widen access to the profession and promote social mobility, we launched our solicitor apprenticeship programme in the UK in December. This will provide school leavers with an alternative to the traditional university route and allow students to avoid taking on the burden of student debt. The firm will welcome our first eight solicitor apprentices in September and has spearheaded City Century, a City of London Law Society led initiative, which sees 50 law firms commit to more than doubling current solicitor apprentice numbers in the City by 2024.

Linklaters is embracing Generative AI, drawing on our long history of creating and adopting new technologies to enhance our client service. All our lawyers have access to a custom-built Generative AI chatbot, developed on Microsoft’s Azure platform, enabling them to use variations of ChatGPT in a safe and secure environment. We are also currently trialling several Generative AI tools designed to assist lawyers with common legal tasks.

CreateIQ, Linklaters’ innovative document automation and contract management platform grew at a rate of nearly 100% during FY2023 with over 100 digitised templates added, attracting over 300 institutions including major banks, asset managers, insurers and governments. ReportiQ, the firm’s next-generation due diligence reporting platform has now been used by Linklaters lawyers across 17 offices and external counsels in 21 countries to generate reports on €18 billion worth of deals.

The launch, in April, of Limitless by Linklaters, building on the firm’s Alternative Legal Services capabilities and embracing a fully location agnostic model, gives the firm access to the widest possible pool of talent from across the UK to meet client needs.

In FY23, Linklaters gave £18 million in charitable contributions through volunteering time and in-kind support as well as cash donations. Linklaters’ people gave over 65,000 hours to hundreds of social causes including developing an innovative blockchain payment solution with the UNHCR to assist internally displaced people in Ukraine and engaging in a record-breaking global mapathon to assist aid agencies working in places prone to climate disasters.
Meeting evolving client needs
Investing in people
Investing in new services and technology for our clients’ benefit
Delivering positive social impact

FY24 Outlook

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Entering the new financial year we have seen a strong deal flow, particularly across energy & infrastructure, high-end M&A and from financial sponsors, notwithstanding the wider slowing of the global M&A market. The challenging economic environment has led to an increase in restructuring and insolvency matters and we have also seen an uptick in regulatory and criminal investigations as well as a rise in class actions, particularly in the tech sector.

As our clients face the challenges of a highly disrupted world, with market volatility, climate and geopolitical tensions, we are ideally positioned to help them mitigate risks and take opportunities."

Paul Lewis, Firmwide Managing Partner

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