DWF pays €50m for Spanish law firm Rousaud Costas Duran
Listed London law firm DWF is set to pay €50.5m (£42.5m) for Spanish law firm Rousaud Costas Duran (RCD) in a move designed to expand its presence in the country.
The acquisition will bring 40 new partners and 400 staff to DWF and will give it offices in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia.
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DWF will pay €7.4m in cash upon completion and another €15.5m in a deferred cash consideration as it takes on RCD’s €5.6m debt
“I am delighted to welcome our RCD colleagues to DWF in another important step for the business,” DWF chief executive Andrew Leaitherland said.
“RCD has a range of potential synergies with DWF, with significant capabilities and sector overlap in our three global areas of insurance, financial services and real estate. As leading legal innovators, our businesses have a strong focus on doing things differently, and this is the next logical step towards providing complex, managed and connected services globally.”
Adolf Rousaud, co-managing partner at RCD, added: “Joining DWF provides an excellent opportunity to continue our growth and development, and we are very excited to be part of the group’s extensive international network which will give us a far broader geographic reach to support our clients.
“DWF is one of the most innovative legal businesses in the world, and what really attracted us was the cutting-edge approach to providing legal services, supported by leading people and technology.”
It came as DWF revealed its latest half-year results, in which revenue rose but profit slipped.
The figures
While international growth fuelled a revenue rise of 10 per cent to £146.8m, profit before tax dipped by £600,000 to £4.7m.
DWF took almost £10m off net debt to reduce its debt pile to £49.5m in the first half of 2020 but diluted earnings per share dropped from 1.9p last year to 1.2p.
It will pay a first interim dividend of 1.25p before paying another in February.
What DWF said
Leaitherland said he was pleased with DWF’s first set of results as a public company, adding that its international expansion would boost second-half growth.
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“Growth in international and connected services was underpinned by a solid performance in the UK business, with insurance services delivering double digit organic growth and commercial services showing resilience in a tough market,” Leaitherland added.
“We have also made progress with our managed services offering by securing a five-year contract with BT, demonstrating the success of this strand of our strategy.”