International law firm Pinsent Masons has achieved a global turnover of £362.2 million ($571.2 million) for the financial year 2014-15, up 12 per cent from the previous period.

The results follow a year of expansion at the firm, said a statement.

In March, it announced plans to open offices in Sydney and Melbourne, before making up a record 29 partners to take the firm's partnership to over 400 - including Islamic finance specialist Amir Ahmed in Dubai, it said.

Pinsent Masons also made a number of significant lateral hires across its global network, including the appointment of renowned corporate partner Osama Hassan in Dubai.

The firm also launched a tax practice in the Middle East led by Ian Anderson, former director of Tax at the Qatar Financial Centre.

Sachin Kerur, head of Middle East Region at Pinsent Masons, said: “The growth of the Middle East region’s Dubai and Doha offices has come in response to the increasing demand for services from our clients.

“The legal industry here is highly competitive, but the Dubai and Doha offices together with our operations in Istanbul are key pillars in the firm’s international strategy – and the impressive growth shown this year by the firm, reinforces Pinsent Masons’ claim to being one of the leading law firms in the region.”

The standout mandates for the firm over the past year included advising Dubai Islamic Bank on a $127 million Mudarabah facility made available to Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation (EMPOWER), said the statement.

The firm has also won plaudits for its innovative Middle East graduate training programme, it said.

John Cleland, managing partner at Pinsent Masons, said: "It has been a positive year in which we have reaped the rewards of several significant investments we have made over a number of years.

“New offices in Paris, Munich and Istanbul, and significant lateral hires into Asia and the Middle East have all played their part. Our partners, and in particular my predecessor David Ryan, take credit for having developed a fantastic platform for success.

“What this demonstrates is how crucial strategic investments are to profitable growth. This has been an 'investment-lite' year by our own recent standards. I would anticipate that over the next year we will make more investments than we did in the year just passed.

“That will start with the launch of our new offices in Sydney and Melbourne, but won't end there. We've made great progress towards our vision of becoming an international leader in the global sectors in which we operate, and these results position us well to move further and faster in that direction." - TradeArabia News Service