A year of substantial investment in priority sectors (domestic and international), alternative delivery solutions and global infrastructure in order to better support and service clients; significant new client mandates secured; another year of income and margin growth.

Addleshaw Goddard has announced fee income for the year ended 30 April 2017, of £198m, representing underlying growth of two per cent on the prior year.

Profit per point on an underlying basis grew by four per cent, continuing the upwards trajectory seen over the last three years.

John Joyce, Addleshaw Goddard Managing Partner, said: "We are very pleased to have grown both our domestic and global turnover whilst improving our underlying profitability, particularly when you factor in the material investments we have made in teams and infrastructure and the effect on our transactional teams of UK trading conditions in the summer period post the referendum."

"We continue to invest, in order to better support our clients, in our infrastructure, talent and 'new law' capability and this, combined with the diversified nature of our business, leaves us well placed to build on the strong pick-up during the second half of last year and the encouraging start to this year."

Over 70 per cent of the firm's income is delivered across its eight chosen sectors: Financial Services, Real Estate, Retail & Consumer, Energy & Utilities, Industrials, Transport, Digital, Health & Life Sciences. During the year the firm acted on a range of complex, high value and strategically important assignments across each sector including:

• Lloyds Banking Group on the £1.9bn buyout of credit card provider MBNA from Bank of America
• Dandara on the creation of the UK's largest single 'build to rent' development portfolio in the Private Rental Sector (PRS)
• National Grid on the sale of its UK Gas Distribution Business with an enterprise value of approximately £13.8bn
• SSE in relation to the Government's smart meter programme
• A joint venture between Keolis UK and Amey Rail on the contract to operate and maintain Greater Manchester's Metrolink - the UK's largest light rail network with 37 million passengers using it each year
• Sale of Go Outdoors to JD Sports
• £2.8bn refinancing of Clarion Group and the £3.4bn refinance of London & Quadrant Housing Trust on its merger with East Thames housing group – the Social Housing sectors largest ever deals
• In Hong Kong, the Equity Capital Markets team completed an IPO at almost the rate of one per month.

Other highlights from the last 12 months include:

• Addition of new offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen through our combination with HBJ materially strengthened key sector offerings across the UK, particularly in Financial Services and Real Estate.
• Completion of planned investments in office moves in Leeds and Manchester and expansion in Hong Kong all of which support ambitions to grow in these regions.
• 23 partner appointments across key sectors (including 4 in the international network), both laterally and internally promoted.
• New appointments / reappointments including BT, Capita, Dept of Transport's inaugural Rail panel, Diageo, Crown Commercial Services, Manchester Airport Group and Standard Life Investments Real Estate panel
• AGElevate launched: programme to support FinTech growth in the UK
• Winning the 'Most Innovative Law Firm' in the 'Resourcing and Efficiency' category at the 2016 FT Innovative Lawyer Awards, for our work delivering a unique business model for Microsoft.
• Continuing to drive the use of innovation and technology across all areas of the firm – this includes the introduction of Kira for due diligence projects and the development of other products for transaction and matter management. Kerry Westland was appointed as our first Head of Innovation and Legal Technology to drive forwards this aspect of our business.
• Ongoing investment in other new and evolving delivery models:
  • the Transaction Services team continues to see growth across all parts of the firm's activities.
  • AGIntegrate – the firm's contract lawyer service has proved to be a very attractive proposition for many clients and has exceeded all expectations in year one, and now number 180+ lawyers.
  • AG Consulting, the home of the Client Development Centre, is developing new products and services to helping in-house teams maximise their effectiveness and deliver value to their organisations.