LAW firm CMS has hailed the performance of its Scottish operation in its first year since its acquisition of Dundas & Wilson, while highlighting the potential for overseas expansion.
Stephen Millar, one of the firm's two executive partners in Scotland, said he expects further consolidation in the Scottish legal market. But he insisted his CMS was focused more on achieving organic growth, in Scotland and markets elsewhere, than doing deals.
Mr Millar, who worked with CMS before the merger and heads the firm in Scotland with Caryn Penley, said: "One of the big reasons for the combination was that lawyers in Scotland are extremely capable when compared with across the rest of the world.
"There is a huge export market for legal services from the UK generally, and that can also be from Scotland.
"There are many people sitting principally in Glasgow and Edinburgh working for clients all over the world now different things.
"That's the way to deal with over-capacity in the sector - not sitting and worrying about it but getting out into the world and winning good quality mandates where lawyers back here are needed."
Noting that the firm was advising companies in countries such as Malaysia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, where the deals are government by UK laws, he added: "Continuing growth in export markets is definitely a big theme, because it's a place where the UK economy and the UK legal sector is quite unique."
Mr Millar suggested the legal sector in Scotland is in a "more healthy" position as a result of the restructuring which has taken place. However he acknowledged that some CMS peers would say there is still over-capacity in the industry.
He said: "I suspect it is not at an end as yet. Just simply, if you listen to what other firms are saying you don't get a sense from them that they are in their perfect sweet-spot, therefore they will continue to be open-minded about things about doing that."
Asked if CMS was open to mounting further takeovers, Mr Millar replied: "If we're looking at the Scottish market, we are into organic growth. We have got some fantastic people now and a great sense of what we can achieve.
"CMS as an organisation continues to grow on a global basis, and we're quite public about markets like North America and other places where we intend to grow quite substantially.
"We're not finished with growth as an organisation but probably in Scotland we are probably now into organic growth."
CMS acquired long-established Dundas & Wilson 12 months ago as part of the wave of consolidation which has hit the Scottish legal scene since the last recession. Recent deals Lindsays merge with RSB Macdonald, and Shepherd and Wedderburn acquire Tods Murray out of administration in late 2014, while before that Morton Fraser merged with Macdonalds, and Burness joined forces with Paull & Williamsons.
Since the acquisition, CMS has secured high-profile panel appointments with SSE, Clydesdale Bank and Interserve, doubled the size of its legal services unit, and made 14 partner appointments.
The period has also advised on some of Scotland's largest real estate and infrastructure deals. It advised Transport Scotland on financial close of the £550m Aberdeen bypass, and acted for Land Securities on its £224.1m sale of The Centre and Almondvale West Retail Park to HSBC Alternative Investments.
Ms Penley, who was with D&W before it joined forces with CMS, said the merger has been positive for the Scottish operation.
She said: "I'm from the legacy D&W side and from my perspective I think it has gone really well.
"From a Dundas & Wilson perspective, had a lot of good clients, but we weren't the right size and we didn't have the reach to service our clients in a way that we really wanted to. The combination has allowed us to do that.
"There are a number of examples where, historically, CMS and Dundas & Wilson would have had contact with similar clients. But the combination has meant we have got more work, have been able to service those clients in a way that those two separate firms could not have done before." For me that really underpins the success."
London-based CMS, which has 59 offices across the world, moved into Scotland with the launch of an office in Aberdeen about 20 years ago, focused on the oil industry. It added a presence in Edinburgh 10 years ago. D&W had offices in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and London.
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