Dentons Berlin
Dentons continues its trek of unprecedented global growth by announcing this week that the firm has entered into non-disclosure agreements with more than 20 firms with a view of negotiating potential future mergers. With expansion ambitions that include mainstay jurisdictions in Western Europe, Dentons is setting sights on new conquests in Australia, Japan, and all of Latin America.
The firm’s strategy outlines a two-pronged approach that includes not only expanding to new markets, but importantly also to grow in size and prominence in those markets where Dentons already operates.
As Dentons chairman Joe Andrew told The Lawyer, “[The McKenna Long & Aldridge merger of April 9] “was a signal to everyone to say that although we are in the US, our intention was to be much larger”. He said this was the firm’s ambition for every region where it currently has a presence.
Dentons global CEO Elliott Portnoy further told The Lawyer that the firm’s track record of expansion success has paved a smoother way for the firm’s designs. “ ‘We have gotten better at this, we have a more polished operation simply because of experience,’” he said.
These negotiations follow on the heels of the McKenna Long merger and the January 2015 merger agreement with Chinese leviathan Dacheng, which made Dentons the world’s largest law firm.
Dentons posted a rise in revenue and PEP in its UK, Middle East and Africa (UKMEA) operations for the 2014/15 financial year (20 May 2015).
