Manchester-headquartered commercial law firm DWF has made two acquisitions as new figures revealed its full-year revenue surged and pre-tax profits surpassed market expectations.
The listed company, in a trading update for the 12 months to April 30, 2021, said it "continued to enjoy strong activity" levels in its second half, with revenue growth for the year of more than 13% (8% organic) and the "pipeline remains robust".
It added that all of its divisions delivered growth in FY21 compared to the prior year.
The group also said that its gross profit margins increased in every division and its cost to income ratio reduced with the combined impact of these improvements driving a more than 120% adjusted profit before tax uplift compared to FY20.
The statement to the London Stock Exchange show that it achieved adjusted pre-tax profits of £34m, c.15% ahead of market expectations.
The group also announced that it has acquired Zing 365 Holdings Limited, a compliance training business, and reached an agreement to acquire BCA Claims & Consulting, trading as Barnescraig & Associates ("BCA"), a Canadian insurance claims and loss adjusting business, to enhance its connected services offering.
Completion of the acquisition of BCA is expected to occur by May 28, 2021.
These acquisitions together are expected to add c.£3m of revenue and c.£500,000 of adjusted pre-tax profits in its new financial year.
Chief executive Sir Nigel Knowles said: "This week marks the first anniversary of my tenure as CEO and I am delighted with our results which show significant improvement on the prior year and a strong performance in their own right.
"We have grown the business, transformed our profitability, improved our operational efficiency and strengthened our balance sheet notwithstanding the impact of Covid-19 during the year.
"These results are testament to the resilience, dedication and excellence shown by our colleagues right across the business.
"Since my appointment last year, we have emphasised the importance of a 'one team' approach and it is paying off.
"We have very clear differentiators versus the rest of the legal sector: we are the only main market listed global legal business, we have a unique client proposition which offers integrated legal and business services, and in Mindcrest we are the only law firm to own a market leading alternative legal services provider.
"This significant global addressable market supports our confidence that we can continue to deliver strong growth in all of our markets, both organically and through acquisitions.
"We have continued to align our global businesses with our core strategy - reorganising operations in Australia, which is expected to be earnings enhancing, and striking new exclusive associations with firms in Singapore and South Africa.
"We already have established relationships and fee earning work is underway with these two firms and we see promising opportunities for more.
"We launched our new global operating structure on 1 st May which will bring efficiencies to our business and enhance our ability to combine the services of our Legal Advisory, Mindcrest and Connected Services to deliver bespoke solutions to our clients with greater efficiency, price certainty and transparency. Our results reinforce the confidence we have in the execution of our strategy."
DWF is expected to publish its full-year results on July 21.
