Profits dipped at global law firm DWF despite a rise in revenue during its latest financial year, new figures have revealed.
The Manchester-headquartered group has posted pre-tax profits of £17.2m for the 12 months to the end of April 2023, compared to £22.3m in the prior year.
However, DWF's revenue increased over the same period from £416.1m to £451.6m.
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The results come as its £342m takeover by private equity group Inflexion is expected to complete by the end of the year.
Chief executive Sir Nigel Knowles said: "We have once again grown the business profitably in what continues to be a very challenging economic environment.
"Like other legal businesses, we have seen salary and inflationary pressures, the impact of interest rate increases and variable demand particularly in transactional areas.
"Despite these challenges, we have seen our organic growth strategy and integrated propositions continue to resonate with clients, and have also added quality businesses to the group via our acquisitions of Acumension and Whitelaw Twining."
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As well as Manchester, DWF has 海角视频 offices in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London and Newcastle.
It also has offices in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, India, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, the UAE and USA.
Paul Rimmer, CEO of commercial services, added: "The senior partners and leaders and I wanted to take this opportunity, on behalf of ourselves and the broader DWF partners and employees, to say thank you to our institutional shareholders for their support since DWF's IPO.
"The business has made substantial progress over the last 4.5 years in an evolving market and we are now excited about delivering the next stage of our strategy under private ownership.
"The quantum of irrevocable undertakings obtained from the senior partners and leaders demonstrates our collective strong belief in the rationale for the proposed acquisition, especially access to additional capital, more flexibility on investment spend and the ability to maintain additional leverage capacity in the business as we invest to counter macro headwinds.
"This is an essential opportunity to ensure DWF has a firm footing for growth over the medium term and we all look forward to supporting our clients under Inflexion's ownership."
Inflexion's portfolio currently includes the likes of Mountain Warehouse while it is a previous backer of Goals Soccer Centres, Jack Wills and On The Beach.