Allen & Overy (A&O) has become the first City firm to announce its half-year financial results, with the magic circle firm seeing revenues increase by 3%.

The modest growth takes revenues for the six-month period ending 31 October to £526m, up from £511m at the same point in 2009.

The firm said that more than half of its turnover was generated outside of the UK, with strong performances across the Asia-Pacific region, Moscow and New York in addition to London.

Turnover was up across all practice areas with the UAE, Germany and the rest of continental Europe also putting in good performances.

A&O managing partner Wim Dejonghe (pictured) commented: "Our strategy of investing in new markets has helped deliver steady growth, which reflects the diversified nature of our business.

"Our new offices in Australia, Indonesia and Qatar are showing positive early progress, and we now have the largest global network of any of our major competitors. This means we are perfectly positioned to take advantage of the shift in the balance of international trade and capital flows from the west to the east."

The magic circle firm was the first to announce its interim results last year as well, when it posted a 7% drop in revenue for first half of 2009-10, down from £548m for the same period the previous year. The firm attributed the drop to the continued turbulence in the global economy.

A&O posted revenues of £1.05bn for the full 2009-10 financial year – a drop of 4%. The firm also managed to boost its average profits per equity partner by 10% to £1.1m, an increase which came in part as a result of a 5% decrease in the average number of equity partners.