Slater and Gordon looks to brighter future and says restructuring of UK business should be complete in first quarter of 2017

Slater and Gordon has said that it is looking to build market share in the UK in its annual report as it looks to put its disastrous last financial year behind it.

The Australian firm said that it will now push forward with the reorganisation of its UK business into three key areas – fast track personal injury, serious and specialised personal injury and general law. It says that its serious and specialised PI work brought in 75% or the firm’s UK revenue for the financial year ending 30 June.

“Our structures processes and technology will be optimised to ensure we are able to provide word-class services efficiently and profitably in each of these areas. This has involved ceasing operations in some locations and re-sizing the workforce,” said the report.

So far, Slater and Gordon has cut 640 jobs in the UK and lowered its office count to 25 locations. There is no indication at present as to how many of the current 3,310 employees will be under threat of redundancy as the restructuring continues. It says the re-modelling of its UK business will be complete in the first quarter of 2017.

Slater and Gordon reported a A$1,017.6 million loss for the 2015-2016 financial year and says that it has net assets of A$305.1 million. These decreased by A$1,045.1 million primarily due to a impairment of goodwill from its acquisition of Quindell’s legal services.

Last month the firm said that it was bringing a claim against Watchstone, the company formerly trading as Quindell, for misleading it over a £637 million deal for its legal services division.

Mark Dugdale