Allen & Overy has announced a 9% increase in profit before tax, pushing profit per equity partner (PEP) to almost £2m.

The magic circle firm reported a 10% jump in revenue to £1.94bn in the year ended 30 April 2022, with more than half of its revenue growth coming from the US – where it opened offices in Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Boston, in addition to a new Los Angeles office which was announced early last year. Profit before tax was up to £900m and PEP reached £1.95m, a 3% increase on last year’s results when the PEP leapt by 17%.

Allen & Overy said there had been ‘strong performance across the firm’s global network, in particular in the US, UK, Europe and the Middle East’, and that it was seeing strong client demand for work to ‘navigate the energy transition, rise of private capital and technological transformation’.

It hailed ‘continued progress on the firm’s drive to build a more diverse and inclusive firm’, which saw it narrowly reduce its gender pay gap for employees and partners in 2021.

The firm also cited its ‘significant financial and legal advisory response to the invasion of Ukraine’, including its Warsaw office providing legal support through the Polish bar and by making ‘a significant donation to the Red Cross to support its vital work in Ukraine’.

Allen & Overy said in March that it would ‘wind down’ its office in Moscow, which opened in 1993, and decline any instructions ‘which the firm considers contrary to its professional responsibility and values’.

Global managing partner Gareth Price said today: ‘Our clients are facing major new challenges and we have invested to broaden our capabilities to support them as well as expand our expertise in key markets to maintain our industry-leading local depth connected by global reach.

‘The global economy continues to be impacted by high inflation and the business environment for our services has been softening in recent months. We expect these conditions to persist in the coming months, but we remain confident that our diversified business provides resilience and positions us well for the more challenging conditions ahead.’