By Maria Ward-Brennan
Keystone Law has recorded a strong double-digit growth in both revenue and profit over the last financial year, as the listed London firm recruited over 50 new principals.
The revenue for the AIM listed legal business grew by 15.1 per cent to £87.9m, up from £76.4m while its profits also had a similar growth (15.4 per cent) from £19.9m to £22.8m.
Speaking to City A.M., CEO James Knight said “Keystone has grown and been profitable throughout its history on the public market”, he added that the real story for this year is the the reduction in the ‘war on talent crisis’ as “we grow Keystone growth by taking on excellent lawyers, who then bring their clients with them.”
The legal business recruited 51 new principals over the last year, which is Keystone’s version of a ‘partner’, which takes the total principals to 432, as a vast majority of new recruits coming from top 100 law firms. “I imagine more than any other law firm in the country,” Knight added.
He explained that it’s the model the company had operated for over 20 years which is that “lawyers can work from whichever place [they want]”. Keystone is headquartered in London but has ‘meeting rooms’ in Bristol, Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle.
Knight pointed out the increased pressures from law firm management for lawyers to return to the office. “In this post pandemic world, you start to see how much has changed or how much mindset has been influenced by the pandemic, and a lot of that speaks directly to what Keystone offers people,” he noted.
He stated that “the legal market has cooled” but added that “not very significantly for ourselves”. He added that the company’s lawyers have remained pretty busy equally across all practice areas in the various sectors that it operates in.
Keystone Law’s CFO Ashley Miller told City A.M. the business has paid interim an ordinary dividend of 5.8p per share and special dividend of 12.5p per share. “We’ve returned over £30m of value to our shareholders since coming to market,” Miller added.
“We enter the new financial year confident in the ability of the business to continue to deliver high quality earnings and sustainable growth in the year ahead,” Knight stated.
