The legal arm of the Co-operative Group has posted a £22 million loss for the year to 2013.
It’s review highlighted the investment made into CLS’s fixed-fee family law businesses in 2013. This brought in £1.2m revenue in its first full year of trading; Co-operative Legal Services (CLS) incurred an operating loss of £9.1 million for the financial year 2013-14, flat turnover and a goodwill impairment of £13 million.
CLS’s family law business also suffered a setback when the policy director left to run her own consultancy business.
A financial statement released by CLS tried to explain the losses and said there was to be further restructuring to come:
“The legal services business remains in the early stages of its development, and this is reflected in the performance for 2013. Sales were broadly flat with losses arising from regulatory change, uncertainty about the future of our General Insurance business, and decisions to invest in future growth however, we remain focused on ensuring we have an efficient operating model to take the business forward”.”
The Co-operative Group overall had the worst year in the group’s 150-year history in 2013, suffering losses of £2.5 billion.
So despite their millions to invest, running a high quality service and a profitable law firm is not as easy as it may appear.
Shouldn’t the Co-op stick to what they know best? Like selling food?
ROFL!