Offshore legal giant Mourant eyes expansion with private equity boost
Offshore legal heavyweight Mourant is the latest professional services firm to take on private equity investment after MML Capital made a minority investment in the firm.
Mourant, an offshore firm that advises on the laws of the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Jersey, and Luxembourg for the financial industry and institutional investors, has taken on outside capital from the mid-market private equity firm.
Its latest annual turnover is estimated to be higher than £127m.
The firm said the investment will support its strategy, which includes further investment in technology and talent, where headcount currently stands at around 1,000 people. It added that the investment will also support a “measured geographic expansion across the world’s leading international financial centres”.
The specific terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but control of Mourant and its leadership will remain with the existing owners.
Jonathan Rigby, Mourant chief executive, said: “We have built something genuinely distinctive – an enduring multi-disciplinary professional services group that serves the world’s most sophisticated institutional clients across legal, governance and consulting, all under one umbrella.”
“This investment does not change what we are building. It changes the pace at which we can build it. Bringing deep sector experience, MML shares our high conviction in the integrated services platform, in the opportunity ahead of us, and in the team we have assembled,” he added.
Robert Devonshire, partner, MML, said: “We are strongly of the belief that Mourant is the most compelling platform in its market. The combination of legal, governance and consulting services under one umbrella, built on a culture that consistently attracts and retains exceptional people, is rare and genuinely durable.”
“As specialist minority investors with a long track record in the professional services space, we are really excited about the combination and what we can achieve together,” he added.
Private equity’s professional services push
The private equity boom in professional services has primarily dominated the accountancy sector, with major deals such as Grant Thornton’s investment from Cinven and Apax buying Evelyn Partners’ accounting arm.
However, when it comes solely to the legal sector, there has been a lot of interest and some movement in the mid-tier market, such as the south coast firm Trethowans, which was acquired by the private equity-backed legal services provider Lawfront.
But there has been no real movement at the higher end of the legal market, other than US law firm McDermott Will & Schulte revealing in November 2025 that it was exploring a restructuring model to allow private equity investment.