International legal practice Osborne Clarke has announced its 2017/18 year-end financial results with income of €273m, a 14 per cent increase on revenues in the previous year.¹
During the last year, Osborne Clarke made a significant number of investments. The firm continued to invest in recruitment and development to support its sector-focused approach and strengthen its capabilities. This year the firm appointed 32 international Partners across Europe and Asia, of whom nearly a fifth (19 per cent) are female.
The international business represents clients ranging from market leaders to fast-growth companies including Grifols, Onepoint and Wirecard.
The firm continued to target new international markets in 2017 and in addition to opening in Sweden Osborne Clarke expanded in Asia by entering Mainland China and admitting new Shanghai-based firm, Zhang Yu & Partners to its international network. The firm's relationship firm, BTG Legal, also opened an office in Bangalore.
Simon Beswick, International CEO Osborne Clarke, commented: "This year marks an important milestone as we set our international expansion plans in 2012. It's been an exciting five years – and working closely with our affiliates, we've opened 21 offices in 11 markets across the US, Europe and Asia. We've evolved our sector-first strategy and consolidated our focus in the areas which we feel are really impacting on our clients' businesses both today and in the future. We've achieve excellent levels of growth and we're proud our strategy has continued to pay off."
Osborne Clarke Belgium, now in its fifth year of operation, played an important role in this year's growth. The corporate team oversaw one of the year's largest business transactions: TiGenix's acquisition by Takeda for EUR 520 million and also advised on the related NASDAQ IPO end 2016. The Belgian office represented a major international financial services provider with its relocation from the UK to Belgium. The fintech team has been working with Belgian Mobile ID (itsme) to help create a brand new type of mobile identification service in Belgium.
Thierry Viérin, Managing Partner for Osborne Clarke Belgium, commented: "We have been very busy over the past five years, starting with only seven lawyers. Now we have a team of 25 lawyers with the recent hiring of numerous associates and two partners, Benjamin Docquir and Joan Carette, making us an important player for the GDPR and fintech matters. We aim to continue growing in the upcoming months. We are proud of what we have achieved, our clients and people, as well as having several of our practices recognised by legal directories such as Chambers and Legal 500. We are very much looking forward to tomorrow's challenges and continuing to help our clients and people succeed and to contribute to Osborne Clarke's international growth."
¹ Final revenue for FY2017/18 was €273m; consistent currency basis of Euro to GBP 1.14 applies for FY2016/17 and FY2017/18.
