Bell Gully Crack $100 Million Turnover

Bell Gully Crack $100 Million Turnover For First Time

CEO Bullish on the year ahead, too

LawFuel - The Law Jobs and News Wire

Bell Gully, one of the ‘big three’ New Zealand law firms, cracked the $100 million revenues mark last year for the first time.

The firm has posted record earnings in the 2007 year, which has a calendar year-end, and posted double-digit growth in all its financial measures, said Bell Gully Chief Executive Stephen MacIiver.

In an exclusive interview with www.LawFuel.co.nz, the legal news and law jobs website, Mr MacIiver said the firm’s growth was even more impressive given that they operate with fewer lawyers and a greater partner-to-staff ratio than their major competitors.

LawFuel believes that the major law firms, particularly Russell McVeagh and Chapman Tripp, also recorded high revenue and profit growth in 2007. The high value work through private equity fund deals and similar work has propelled the triumvirate to the forefront of New Zealand firms and has, in Mr McIiver’s view, opened the gap between them and the other, major law firms.

“We’ve had consistent strong growth over the last three to five years but that has been increasing over the last couple of year,” he said. “And last year was the standout”.

“It was the level of client and market activity with high price transactions and matters and we were fortunate enough to have the market coming to us on market-leading, iconic transactions.”

Transaction work was not by any means the only driver for the revenue growth, Mr MacIiver said. Bell Gully has always maintained a strong litigation practice and has acted on a wide variety of regulatory and Commerce Commission investigation work.

And the future? Will the credit crunch affect the next 12 months? Mr MacIiver prefers to talk about the “liquidity crunch” and the affect it will have on transactional work, particularly from the Australian-based private equity funds.

He remains bullish on the outlook ahead and sees new work on the horizon, in areas like infrastructure and public private partnerships as continuing to grow Bell Gully’s workstream and profits.

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