• Revenues up 7.8% for year ending 30 June 2021
• Profits grow 36.7% year on year 
• Continued investment in home-grown and lateral talent 
• Launch of AI collaboration with SparkBeyond to reimagine the legal Industry

Baker McKenzie has announced revenues for the fiscal year ended 30 June 2021 (FY21) of USD $3.1-billion, the first time the Firm has crossed the $3-billion mark. Revenues increased by 7.8% compared to the previous year, and together with carefully managed costs, this resulted in a 36.7% year-on-year growth in profits.

Most regions recorded significant growth - Asia Pacific revenues were up 5.8%, EMEA higher by 12.7% and North America increased by 5.5%. Latin America revenues dropped 5.6%, mostly due to steep local currency devaluations in parts of the region, but were positive on a constant currency basis.

EMEA saw strong growth in the UK, the Middle East, Poland, Austria and Sweden. In Asia Pacific the financial centres of Hong Kong and Japan were the strongest performing markets. North American growth was driven in part by a strong performance on the West Coast.

The Firm's PPP for FY21 is up 41.5% as compared with FY20, reflecting revenue growth in this wide range of markets. Compared with pre-pandemic FY19, FY21 PPP reflected a 25.1% increase.

In terms of industry focus, Baker McKenzie continued to build out its client base and offerings amongst the Healthcare & Life Sciences and Technology sectors, while on the practice front, Baker McKenzie remains a transactional powerhouse, with M&A growth up 8%, alongside particularly strong growth in Private Equity (+30%). Both Employment & Compensation and Dispute Resolution were also strong performers, with growth of 15% year on year.

Milton Cheng, Global Chair, Baker McKenzie said, “Against such a challenging backdrop, to achieve record revenues is a huge vote of confidence from our clients, and testament to the hard work and resilience of our people around the world. Much of this increase in activity was driven by the adoption of our Firm-wide, comprehensive Client & Market Strategy, with success in areas such as the TMT sector, and across our Private Equity practice, an encouraging validation of the investments we have made, and continue to make, in these areas. However, while we are proud of what we have achieved together in this last, extraordinary year, we know that we can still do more.  We need to continue to build momentum – focusing on how we can achieve sustainable and inclusive growth - for the Firm and for our clients. Our Client & Market Strategy will help us to achieve this.”

“We have headed into FY22 confident in the lessons we have learned dealing with the many challenges and issues we have faced in the past 18 months. We continue to grow both through our excellent home-grown talent and by recruiting high quality lateral talent to join our Firm and build on key strengths in areas including M&A, PE and in other complex cross border transactions, multi-jurisdictional investigations, and in the digital transformation space.”

“As businesses in all sectors around the world embrace and adapt to the digital age, we also continue to invest in technology, being at the forefront in bringing advanced machine learning to the legal sector. Our partnership with SparkBeyond will use artificial intelligence to analyse massive amounts of data gathered by the firm and from the internet to predict the kind of legal services a given client will need in the near future. I expect it to be a catalyst to a cascade of new ways of thinking our firm, helping us to drive and leverage our growth mind-set at Baker McKenzie.”