We couldn’t help but seize upon the following comments from Allens Arthur Robinson Chief Executive Partner Michael Rose in a recent SMH article (which we regard as yet another self-congratulatory installment in Rose’s recent media assault):
Attitude to Money: “Money wasn’t really a big part of my life when I was growing up and, as an adult, I don’t think about it or talk about it too much.”
Not much thinking about cashola, hey?
Then exactly what thoughts were running through Mr Rose’s head when, little more than one year into his reign as Chief Executive Partner, he made the vastly unpopular decision to cancel the firm’s Christmas party?
You’ll recall our own view that Mr Rose probably cancelled the Christmas party because he calculated that the cancellation would yield a net saving of 0.06% of profit for the Allens partnership.
But Mr Rose’s focus on cold hard cash in our view goes so much further than the loss of some awkward dance moves and strained corporate socialising. Yes, with dollar signs in his eyes, Mr Rose told the AFR in July that:
“For the last 20 years we have been able to rely on revenue growing, the size of the firm growing, stable partnerships, pretty predictable staff turnover and regular rate increases. I think all of those things have changed.”
When asked to put a figure on the firm’s revenue in late 2009, Rose made the following comment to ALB:
“We don’t talk about numbers outside the firm… that’s the private information of the partners who own the business and we don’t think it’s something … to talk about. Our clients don’t want to read about how much money we’re making.”
So on the one hand we’ve got Mr Rose saying he doesn’t think about money “too much” and on the other hand we’ve got him walking anyone who’ll listen through 20-year’s worth of AAR‘s cashflow history, before spelling out the firm’s very well-considered position on the disclosure of its bottom line. Doesn’t think about money, or thinks alot about money?
Funnily enough, despite hypothesising to the AFR that revenue growth was a thing of the past, BRW estimated that Allens’ revenue grew by about 2% last financial year.
Is Mr Rose truly the philanthropist portrayed in the SMH article, or is he a fastidious AAR-revenue student who green-lighted reported freeze-outs and confidential redundancies so he could maximise partner profit?
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Clearly AAR left hand does not know what its right is playing with. See comment by Tim Lester about the integral part their Bangkok office will play in their new Japanese alliance. Does he not know that they are shutting Bangkok?
I worked for AAR for a number of years, and it was fairly common knowledge that the staff were to bear the brunt of the GFC
When you see & hear about Partners holidays abroad, new cars and houses, gadgetry et al, while simultaniously hear that we all need to tighten our belts and no, you can’t have a pay rise this year because there simply isn’t any money in the pot, it does make you wonder.
They were one of the first firms to start cost cutting when the GFC was a dot on the horizon, and we had many town hall meetings where we were told that we are ‘surfing the wave’ due to the prudent planning of the executive team. Kind of common sense that protecting the firm actually relates to protecting the partner’s profits, I guess that’s the rules of the game…. doesn’t make it suck any less though.
my abiding memory of allens is a female partner moaning that her husband would not let her buy a new mercedes 4wd this year as he thought it was ‘extravagant’. this was 2 weeks after we got told that our salaries weren’t going up for another year.
no wonder mallesons and freehills are pulling ahead of AAR. the firm is run like an old fashioned club.
Every year during the summer clerkship seduction evening, Michael would show the painting, “The Ambassadors” (1533) by Hans Holbein the Younger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ambassadors_(Holbein). (I am surprised Allens haven’t acquired the same in its voluminous art collection.) Michael would draw an analogy between the well-dressed subjects and senior law firm partners, both possessing power, money and accoutrements. Then he would point out the memento mori and remind the impressionable penultimates that there is more to life.
Yes, there is more to life than law firm depression, being “Lathamed” and chasing record PEPs. Like playing cricket, or example. Allens is no different from any big law firm around town and Michael no different from other CEPs.
Always amusing when partners who live in Hunter’s Hill talk about how they dont think about money…I wonder if the partnership at Allens thought one little bit about the people they let go or the effect it had on their lives…absolutely disgraceful…