Confilegal | After its first year as a law firm, Andersen Tax & Legal in Spain has increased its turnover by 32% to 18.39 million euros and its staff by 23% to more than 220 professionals. Almost 20% of this total comes from foreign customers, a figure that will grow in the coming years.

It currently has 240 professionals in its offices in Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona and Seville.

"We are pleased with how this integration has gone. That means that the decision we made a year ago was the right one," Jaime Olleros told CONFILEGAL. In September, the headquarters in Madrid will have new offices following its expansion plan".

The Spanish office headed by Jaime Olleros is the most important international office in Europe, which has placed several Spanish lawyers, such as Olleros himself, on the World Management Committee. At the same time, three lawyers and partners such as Toni Prat, Gonzalo Cerón and María Olleros, from Andersen Tax & Legal, have been appointed members of the Advisory Council of this global group of 30 members worldwide and Miguel Gordillo "of counsel" from the Spanish office in the Madrid office is a member of the Senior Advisory Council.

For Olleros, the fact that he has recovered many professionals from the former Andersen Consulting, whose path ended definitively in 2002, but which left many managers who knew Andersen well free and whose values have helped a lot in the last three years to ensure that the integrations are quick and Andersen Tax & Legal is beginning to be defined as an alternative to the traditional law firms and the strength of the Big Four in the legal sector.

"The leadership effort of our President and CEO, Mark Vorsatz, is also undoubtedly commendable. He has managed to channel the enthusiasm of all the professionals in this project".

Andersen Tax & Legal has opened an office in Seville to continue with its territorial expansion plan and has incorporated José Manuel Pumar and Tomás Rivero as partners in the tax area and Carlos Soto in litigation to promote this location. The firm, with offices in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, has thus added a new location in Spain, where it is developing a determined growth strategy, in which the Andalusian capital was a priority. This new branch, already operational since May 1st, has seven professionals and will provide advice in all areas of law through the firm that operates nationally and internationally.

The managing partner of Andersen Tax & Legal in Spain, Jaime Olleros, stressed that the opening of an office in Seville was a key step in the growth plan developed by the firm in Spain, which allows it to expand its territorial coverage and continue to position itself in the domestic market. A growth strategy, he said, which has allowed the incorporation of four new partners, bringing the total to 37 and over 240 professionals.

 Olleros stressed that the opening of this new office reflects Andersen Global's clear commitment to Spain, where it already has four Andersen Tax & Legal offices in Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona and Seville, as well as a fifth office in Bilbao through the collaborating firm Euskaltax.  This means that the Spanish subsidiary has a significant specific weight within the strategy of this international group.

"Our presence in Portugal has also grown with a new location and team in Porto," he explains.

For the managing partner of Andersen Tax & Legal in Spain, "the economic and political situation worldwide positions our country as a reference in the international market, both for foreign investments and for companies seeking to strengthen their position abroad and knowing how to take advantage of this opportunity allows us to grow sustainably and strengthen our position in the market.

Internationally, Andersen Global has doubled its presence in one year, going from having a presence in 16 countries to operating in 37 markets. We currently have 107 offices and more than 2,500 professionals.

"The idea is to continue to grow in other countries in the Strategic Plan defined for the next three years. Germany and Paris are growing a lot and there is room for improvement in the coming years," says Olleros. 

Spain, a strategic site for Andersen

The positioning of Andersen Tax & Legal in Spain means that the US giant has a very clear bridge to Latin America. "At the last worldwide partners meeting in Chicago we were able to see the strength of the new law firms in Latin America. The same has happened in Africa where growth is important in these years". On the US and a possible trade war promoted by Donald Trump, its current president, "in the event that this happens, a new situation will arise in which we lawyers will have to advise our clients".

On the situation in Catalonia he acknowledges that "we see the situation sometimes with astonishment and sometimes with concern. However, it has not affected our business much until now. Our Barcelona office is growing and progressing in a more complex environment, but we have not noticed a halt in business activity", explains Jaime Olleros.

A few days ago, the firm organized a conference on Cuba and its reforms with the participation of Pavel Vidal, an economist from that country who holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Havana, in the Spanish capital. Cuba is in a moment of change in which the new leaders must adopt decisions that have been postponed until now but that represent a new challenge to position the Cuban economy by promoting domestic production and foreign investment.

During his speech, Olleros said that on this point, he has assured that it offers opportunities for companies from other countries, not only those exposed in the investment portfolio, but also for the needs of society itself. "We would have our own office in Cuba if we could know the regulations of the country, but at the moment this is not possible and the firm's Cuba Desk has been working there for years".

"Economic change is taking place and it is going through monetary unification," said the managing partner of Andersen Tax & Legal in Spain, who pointed to the effect on wage costs, price and labour force that this change is going to have. For Jaime Olleros, Cuba has an important challenge for the next few years and the businessmen must be "aware of the situation in the country when they start their business but also be patient and have the financial capacity for the coming years of change".

For his part, Pavel Vidal, who has conducted an analysis of the economic situation in Cuba over the past few years and a comparison with Latin American countries, said that the entrepreneurs who work on the island maintain their interest in investing in the country.

As he explained, the coexistence of the Cuban peso with the convertible peso (CUC) implies the existence of a subsidized exchange rate, so "there is a business sector that has survived with the implicit subsidy that the change implies". At this point, he added that with the disappearance of the CUC, which was not completed in the 1990s with the beginning of the monetary reform, "a greater adjustment of the state sector, a new reform of employment and a new structure of the private sector is needed" that incorporates workers and promotes the economy that the public sector is giving up.

For 2018, the firm is working on its national expansion in Seville, the office and the Bilbao team are already open. "Another of the objectives that we are going to achieve throughout the year is to work in the firm's European working groups on a regular basis. At the same time, we want to continue to grow qualitatively in both legal and professional practices that can be incorporated into this project.

I recognize that part of my time is dedicated to looking for talent, new professionals who will bring added value to the firm", stresses Jaime Olleros.