For the second year in a row, Cahill Gordon & Reindel has posted strong financial growth, with gross revenue hitting a record high in the Wall Street firm's nearly 99-year history.

Due to strong performances by Cahill's corporate, capital markets and lending practices, the firm's gross revenue grew 1.3 percent in 2017, to $387 million, up from $382 million in 2016. Revenue per lawyer grew 3.3 percent, to $1.34 million, while profits per partner increased 1.5 percent, to $3.69 million.

“Overall it was a good year,” said corporate partner William Hartnett, chairman of Cahill's executive committee.

For Cahill, whose annual financial performance typically ebbs and flows with the capital and bank lending markets, a fairly active global economy in 2017 led to more deals, more volume and, ultimately, more legal fees, Hartnett said.

Cahill, which has offices in New York, London and Washington, D.C., advised on more than 520 deals in the U.S and Europe that generated over $500 billion in proceeds. The firm, known for its bond market expertise since its days as outside counsel to now-defunct Drexel Burnham Lambert, saw a 37 percent increase in high-yield bond deals last year over 2016. As a result, Cahill said it advised on 136 deals that generated proceeds of $78.4 billion. The firm also had a 33.5 percent market share of leveraged lending activities in the U.S. in 289 deals worth nearly $360 billion.

“We continue to have a dominant market share and that is very helpful to both top and bottom lines,” Hartnett said.

In 2017, Cahill advised financiers in connection with some of the year's biggest transactions. The firm represented JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other arrangers on The Blackstone Group LP's $6.1 billion leveraged buyout of TeamHealth Holdings Inc. Cahill also picked up a role on the $4.4 billion debt refinancing for the acquisition of industrial packaging products supplier Mauser Group NV by Stone Canyon Industries LLC subsidiary BWAY Corp., as well as the $9.9 billion in financing for CenturyLink Inc.'s $34 billion cash-and-stock purchase of Level 3 Communications Inc.

Cahill also had a role representing 1-800-FLOWERS.com Inc. in its $115 million sale of Fannie May Confections Brands Inc. and its subsidiaries to Italian Nutella maker Ferrero International SA. The firm also advised Arch Capital Group Ltd. in its $3.3 billion buy of outstanding shares of stock in United Guaranty Corp. from insurance giant American International Group Inc.

The firm's overall head count shrunk by 2 percent last year, to 290, down from 296 in 2016, while Cahill's total number of equity partners decreased 3.1 percent, from 64 to 62. In January 2017, Cahill saw former executive committee member David Kelley decamp for Dechert in New York.

Hartnett attributed part of the decline in head count to the retirement of several longtime lawyers in Cahill's litigation practice. But thanks to successful succession planning, Hartnett said the transition did not affect the firm's profits.

“To still have a relatively strong year in litigation with those transitions happening was a testament to good planning and demand for our services,” Hartnett said.

Despite the loss of Kelley and other litigators, Cahill also made a rare lateral hire in 2017 with the addition of Nola Heller, chief of the violent and organized crime unit at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, who joined the firm in October as a partner in its white-collar crime and government investigations practice.

“We have selectively over the years brought in laterals and been very successful at that,” Hartnett said. “I think that kind of emboldens you to go out and be a little bit more aggressive in the lateral market.“

As for what lies ahead, Cahill is already off to a strong start in 2018. But despite the current law firm merger madness, Hartnett is quick to cut off any discussion about a potential combination in Cahill's future.

“This firm is violently independent,“ said Hartnett, who assumed leadership of Cahill in 2006, a year before former partner Roger Meltzer left the firm for DLA Piper, where he is now global co-chairman.

Cahill was tapped this month to serve as counsel to the financiers on Broadcom Ltd.'s proposed acquisition of Qualcomm Inc., which have agreed to provide up to $100 billion in financing for the mega-merger.

“We continue to be involved in the biggest transactions out there,” Hartnett said in reference to a deal that would be the largest corporate loan on record. “Those are the types of situations in which the lending community turns to Cahill.”