Ince & Co has confirmed that six of its partners, representing 7% of the partnership, are to be shown the door. Ten secretaries are also to be made redundant.

Last year the firm made its first round of redundancies since it was founded in 1870. In the end 17 associates and secretaries were pushed out. Insiders say that despite that process, the existing secretarial structure is still a mess, and so another ten secretaries have been asked to leave as part of a comprehensive restructuring.

The firm isn't going into the details of the partner departures*, presumably in a bid to help their chances of finding places on the letterhead elsewhere. Ince has traditionally focussed on shipping, a sector that's been beasted recently. The firm's revenue fell 5% last year, and while it is diversifying (it's just hired an aviation partner from Bird & Bird), in a tough market partners have to be bringing in the fees to survive.
 

Some shipping being beasted yesterday

A spokesman told RollOnFriday that "no other fee earners will be affected by this restructure and we have recently announced the appointment of four new partners". He confirmed that the firms was able to fill "a significant proportion of the new roles from our existing secretarial staff, but the changes regrettably resulted in ten redundancies. We are now in the process of recruiting for six new roles."

*At least it's had the decency publicly to own up to the departures - most City firms quietly take their unwanted partners round the back and shoot them.