Clyde & Co has reported an 8 per cent rise in turnover at the half-year, as revenue rises for the first six months of 2015/16 from £178m to £192m.

The results reflect a similar rise for the first half of the 2014/15 financial year when the firm saw turnover rise 5 per cent from £169m. Full year turnover grew 8.5 per cent, reaching £395m for the full year.

Clydes CEO Peter Hasson said the firm had had a steady performance in the UK and MENA but the US and Asia-Pacific regions had also performed particularly well. The firm also saw strong growth from its international arbitration practice, the oil and gas sector and its transactional groups across MENA and the Asia Pacific.

Hasson said the firm could also look at expanding its existing US and Latin America presence to Mexico and Miami, to take advantage of insurance work flowing between the US and the region. Clydes already has offices in Brazil and Venezuela.

Speaking to The Lawyer Hasson said: “The drop in commodities prices has led to disputes in certain areas but it has also led to increased transactional work as people look to restructure, refinance or sell and acquire assets from distressed buyers.”

The firm also saw strong growth in the Asia Pacific region due to a large amount of work in the insurance sector.

Hasson said: “If you look at Asia Pacific in particular the level of insurance penetration there is pretty low. What the insurers have been doing is looking at the best way to establish structures out there to try and tap into that market.

“So we’ve done a lot of work in setting up organisations there, acquiring local organisations but also we do quite a lot of work around new product launches there.”

In October Clydes merged with Scottish firm Simpson & Marwick in a move which will boost the firm’s revenue to £420m. The merger added 45 partners and six offices to Clydes’ UK practice, but the Scottish firm’s results were not included in the half-year figures.

Due to the partners in Scotland earning less than Clydes’ partners in England, it is expected average profit per equity partner (PEP) will fall as a result of the merger. PEP at Clydes currently stands at £660,000.

Hasson said the value of the firm’s profit sharing units that are issued to partners would not change as a result of the merger.