Our view
In one of the most challenging years in the financial markets, our international expansion through our key strengths in financial institutions, energy, infrastructure, mining and commodities, transport, technology and innovation and pharmaceuticals and life sciences enabled us to sustain and grow our business.
A single gateway
As a result of our expansion into Australia at the beginning of 2010, we have the best resourced Asia Pacific legal practice and on-the-ground access to big ticket cross-border deals, particularly in the mining sector. On 1 June 2011 we established a presence in South Africa to create Norton Rose South Africa (incorporated as Deneys Reitz Inc) and moved into Canada to create Norton Rose OR LLP. This makes us a top ten global legal practice by number of lawyers, offering clients a single gateway for their growing need for one-stop cross-border legal services.
Influential economies
Both Canada and South Africa are increasingly influential economies for our clients in each of the sectors in which we have key strengths and we have now increased the depth of our resources and expertise there. We are seeing a considerable increase in the amount of business flowing between Europe, Asia Pacific, Canada and Africa; the enlarged Group will be ideally positioned to support this business growth and to provide our clients with the highest quality of legal services.
Strong industry focus
Countries including China remain hungry for energy supplies and natural resources and our strong sector focus helped us win business. Governments are securing long-term commodity supplies for periods of up to 50 years, a key driver for our business in the year to April 2011 and beyond. In addition, we are well positioned as the only legal practice with the on-theground expertise to advise companies seeking to list on all the traditional resources stock exchanges – Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Sydney and Toronto.
Regulation and risk come to the fore
The corporate world is changing and we are helping clients adapt to tougher regulation by developing audits and compliance processes. Risk remains a key issue, emphasised this year with the introduction of the UK Bribery Act, which potentially applies to all foreign businesses carrying out a part of their business in the UK. We have developed new products to help clients manage risk, including RiskMaNageR, which identifies the level of risk for clients' transactions and how to mitigate it.
The future
After a fair amount of restructuring, companies now have leaner structures and less debt so we expect them, in time, to re-enter the acquisition market. Our reach has grown both by geography and sector knowledge after expanding into South Africa and Canada and as, with the assistance of our Canadian colleagues, we develop our pharmaceuticals and life sciences expertise. Our expansion is creating the building blocks for us to effect a step change in our ability to service our clients' global needs. We look forward to moving into a new chapter in our development and theirs.
Download the full briefing The corporate year in review (pdf 1.14 MB)
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