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Should you buy shares in a law firm?

WERE it possible to buy shares in big British and American law firms, they would appear to be attractive investments. They boast double-digit revenue growth at a time when many companies are suffering. Baker & McKenzie, one of America’s biggest firms, has just announced a 20% increase in annual revenues, which exceeded $2 billion for the first time. Britain’s top four firms have reported revenues up by an average of 15% this year, with all four passing the GBP1 billion ($1.85 billion) mark.

Investing in law firms is more than just a pipe dream. A change in British law, introduced last year, enables law firms to use business structures other than private partnerships, and allows for external investment and initial public offerings (IPOs). Law firms will have to wait for a new regulator, the Legal Services Board, but everything is due to be in place by 2011. ...

Everyone knows industry needs oil. Now people are worrying about water, too

“WATER is the oil of the 21st century,” declares Andrew Liveris, the chief executive of Dow, a chemical company. Like oil, water is a critical lubricant of the global economy. And as with oil, supplies of water—at least, the clean, easily accessible sort—are coming under enormous strain because of the growing global population and an emerging middle-class in Asia that hankers for the water-intensive life enjoyed by people in the West.

Oil prices have fallen from their recent peaks, but concerns about the availability of freshwater show no sign of abating. Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, estimates that global water consumption is doubling every 20 years, which it calls an “unsustainable” rate of growth. Water, unlike oil, has no substitute. Climate change is altering the patterns of freshwater availability in complex ways that can lead to more frequent and severe droughts. ...

China finds a way to cut car imports without offending the WTO

LESS than a month after losing its first legal dispute with the World Trade Organisation (WTO), China has introduced a new tax that will achieve much of what it originally wanted, only by another route. Moreover, it is a “green” tax. Who could object to that?

For the past few years China has imposed a special 25% tariff on imported car parts, rather than the usual 10%, if the parts made up more than half of the value of a vehicle. (Imported new cars are also subject to a 25% tariff.) This was to encourage foreign carmakers to use more local suppliers and reduce imports. But America, the European Union and Canada argued that the tariff was against WTO rules. In July the WTO, based in Geneva, agreed. ...

Raising prices in straitened times calls for careful planning

A COUPLE of years ago General Motors (GM), America’s biggest carmaker, swore it would no longer offer “employee discounts” on its vehicles. These large price cuts shrank bloated inventories, but they left buyers thinking that GM’s cars were worth far less than their list prices. Scrapping the discounts was part of ailing GM’s efforts to cure itself. But on August 19th the company reversed gear and reintroduced them, for a limited period, on nearly all its 2008 models and some 2009 ones.

Although the move smacks of desperation, GM is not the only firm hoping that discounting can help it weather a sluggish global economy. On August 20th eBay, an online-auction site, said it would reduce the fees it charges sellers who post goods for sale on its site at a fixed price. The temptation in a downturn is to let prices slide to protect or increase market share. However, this approach can backfire if it triggers a price-cutting spiral. Moreover, managers often overestimate the extra sales that lower prices generate, so companies may be left worse off than before the cuts. That may help explain why a number of firms have been raising their prices, not cutting them—a trend that has contributed to a resurgence of inflation. ...

Despite hard times for the makers of big cars, JLR is happy under its new owner

WHEN Ratan Tata claimed ownership of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) from Ford in early June, one of the first visits he made was to the Jaguar heritage museum at the British firm’s old site near Birmingham. The 71-year-old Mr Tata recalled that his father had bought one of its first XK120 sports cars in the late 1940s. Not only was the museum able to dig out his father’s order from the archives, it also took the chairman of the Indian industrial conglomerate for a spin in a similar car. It was the kind of personal touch that both the tradition-steeped car firm, and its new owner, hope will characterise their relations.

Those relations may undergo an early test. When Tata Motors bought JLR for about $2 billion, it looked like a good deal. Thanks to Ford’s transformation of Land Rover, JLR had made profits of $650m in 2007. With its well received new mid-sized saloon, the XF, even Jaguar, a perennial lossmaker under Ford, was close to turning the corner into profit. In the first quarter of this year JLR rang up profits of $421m. ...