Top partners at Allen & Overy earned an average of £2.2 million in the year preceding their $3.5 billion merger with Shearman & Sterling, due largely to the sale of a legal tech business.
The big payday for the A&O partners was partly due to the sale of a legal tech unit Aosphere to private equity investors.
Aosphere was developed in 2002 and provides legal analysis across a variety of compliance topics such as cross-border marketing, data issues, and the like.
The company was sold by A&O to UK-based private equity firms Inflexion and US investor Endicott Capital valuing the business at £200 million.
The firm’s 600 equity partners saw an 18.6 percent increase in their earnings it said in an announcement last Thursday, compared to the previous financial year. This boost followed a 17 percent rise in pre-tax profits to £1 billion and a 3.4 percent increase in revenues to £2.2 billion.
The firm also saw a number of partners leave prior to the merger with Shearman Sterling.
The firm did not break down its results for the United States or other regions. A spokesperson declined to comment beyond the statement.
These results, covering the period up to the end of April, were released two months after Allen & Overy’s merger with Shearman & Sterling, creating a combined firm with nearly 4,000 lawyers worldwide.
In comparison, Linklaters reported that its equity partners earned almost £1.9 million on average. This figure was bolstered by growth in the firm’s US practice and a record revenue increase of 24 percent.
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