Turnover (£m): 62

Average PEP: 325

Equity spread (£k): 150-730

Profit margin (%): 41

RPL (£k): 223

Vision –
Execution –
Governance –

Edinburgh-headquartered Dundas & Wilson’s turnover and profit remained broadly flat in 2010-11, with managing partner Donald Shaw’s dreams of ramping up in London so far failing to materialise.

Turnover nudged up from £61m to £62m, with 39 per cent of that coming from Dundas’s City office – the same proportion as in 2009-10.

Net profit was up by £400,000, from £25m to £25.4m, while ­average profit per equity partner rose by 2.5 per cent, from £317,000 to £325,000.

While the firm is ostensibly managed by an eight-person board made up of Shaw and chairman David Hardie plus three executive and three non-executive members, in truth it is Shaw who holds most sway at the firm.

Shaw decides on all partners’ profit shares (his own share is ­decided by Hardie and the non-execs) with the board simply being asked to ratifying his recommendations. Profit shares for the past financial year ranged from £150,000 to £730,000.

Dundas remains one of the few all-equity partnerships in the UK 100, although it has considered introducing a non-equity band. A number of partners in the firm are in favour of the move, although Shaw is understood to have ruled it out for now.

It is probable that the firm would have to look at non-equity ­partners to effect a merger in London, which remains its Holy Grail.

Towards the end of the 2010-11 financial year Dundas held talks with £31m London outfit Bircham Dyson Bell regarding a tie-up of some still unspecified kind, but this has been put on ice for the time being.