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Our view....
Halliwells is keen to promote itself as a big Manchester player, and as partners habitually
trouser something around the £410,000 mark we'd be inclined to agree. The firm has also announced that
it wants
to expand - informal merger talks with Wacks Caller came to nothing,
and the firm had to rely on its London
office for this. But it now employs more than 1200 people, and
the Manchester office relocated to smart new premises in December
2007.
By most people's calculations
Halliwells is winning the struggle to break away from the rest of
the mid-tier competition in the city. Back in 2003 it announced that
it was looking to break the £40m turnover barrier for the
financial year, following on from its impressive 15% increase in
2002-03 to £35.5m. By 2007 this had more than doubled to a whopping
£86.2m.
The firm acts for several major banks
and a couple of years ago set up a consulting arm which specialises
in advising on regulatory compliance for executive compensation and
share schemes. They also
launched an environmental team, headed by Denise Dowell who brought a
bunch of new clients with her from rival Dickinson Dees.
Another key step forward has been to develop relationships in several European countries
which feed corporate work to them, helping to shore up a practice which had
been lagging behind some of its rivals. The firm's key practice areas
are corporate, dispute resolution, real estate and business services.
A new
managing partner, Ian Austin, was
recently elected on a promise to breathe new
life into the firm's poor internal communications and change the
equity points allocation system which was disliked by the younger
partners. After only a couple of months in the job, he announced that
the firm were abandoning their 'eat what you kill' remuneration in
favour of a modified equity lockstep. It remains to be seen if he
will be as successful with his three year plan to develop the firm's corporate
and property practices.
All in all, Halliwells look like a
confident, profitable firm currently being stirred by the winds of
change but pointing in the right direction to
build on their recent successes. And with greater opportunities for
younger blood to make equity within a reasonable time.
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