|
Our view....
Hammonds may still be one of the big four firms in the city, but they're certainly
making heavy weather of it and spent most of 2002-2003 haemorraghing
partners. To lose the occasional partner can be put down to
carelessness, but misplacing 42 in one financial year indicates
serious problems. Depending on your point of view, such a massive loss
is either evidence of a rare and courageous attempt to clamp down on
underperformance aand maximise profits, or indicates a huge loss of
confidence amongst the partnership. The fact that profits fell to
£272k in 2003, rather than the targeted £400k, rather indicates the
latter. Four years on they've finally broken the £400k barrier - but
only just, and they're still well behind the competition.
To make matters worse the firm asked
the remaining partners to stump up an extra £11m in capital
contributions to help fund their ambitious international expansion
and, in a rather desperate-looking dash for cash, even changed their
direct dial numbers to the national rate, so they could pocket a
commission on each call.
In Manchester, the firm is particularly noted for
its banking and finance practice
and its commercial litigation and property work, but have most of the
bases
covered. Recent deals have included work on a
£100m mixed-use development in Solihull; representing Aston Villa
during the football club's renegotiation of its contract with Premium
TV Ltd; the £25m AIM flotation of the Felix Group and winning the tender to advise the £60m Ryder Pension Fund.
They were also the only law firm cited in industry magazine
Regeneration & Renewal's analysis of sector movers and shakers.
Hammonds' clients in this field include numerous RDAs, English
Partnerships and Advantage West Midlands.
Hammonds hope they're just suffering
a temporary glitch, and will bounce back to greater profitability once
they finish their drive into Europe (opening branches in Italy,
France, Spain, Germany, Russia and Hong Kong hasn't been cheap).
In
the meantime there's a firm-wide bonus scheme where everyone gets a
reward if the firm exceeds its targets.
Email
your comments |
