Keystone Law beats market expectations in first full-year results since listing
Keystone Law today posted a 35 per cent increase in revenue in its first full-year results since it became the third English law firm to float in November 2017.
The firm beat market expectations with revenue of £42.7m and adjusted profit before tax of £5.1m.
Keystone, which launched in 2002, operates a platform model, recruiting lawyers with their own books of business, with the firm providing an overarching brand and centralised functions such as IT and finance.
Keystone said principal lawyers at 31 January 2019 stood at 277, up 33 on a year previously.
Total fee earners grew to 321, up from 55 in January 2018.
Chief executive James Knight said “being on the public markets has served us extremely well…we were motivated in the first place by being an ambitious organisation and a desire to use public company status to interface and engage with a more sophisticated client base – although it’s quite anecdotal – it has been fairly effective.”
Keystone has since been followed onto the stock exchange by law firms Rosenblatt, Knights and DWF.
Knight said the further law firm floats had “helped generate a great deal of interest in the concept of the law firm IPO. It has helped in the commercial world and the legal profession have woken up to this.”
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said Keystone “is cutting a swathe through the legal industry”.
Shares fell 2.17 per cent to 496p.