Kirkland's partners make $11m a year – but can it last?

Welcome to the Lawyer Podcast. I'm Katrin Griffiths, the Lawyer's Editor in Chief. And I'm Christian Smith, the Lawyer's Litigation Editor. Kirkland and Ellices' unstoppable rise and domination of big law might seem as certain as death and taxes. There was even a sense of inevitability when its latest financial results were released earlier this month because it became the first firm to surpass $10 billion in turnover and pay a profit per equity partner at $11 million. But it was actually less than a decade ago in 2017 when the firm first topped the global revenue charts. So how did Kirkland get here, what makes it so successful and is its place at the top of the tree actually secure? To discuss on today's podcast we are joined by our Deputy Editor, City Rachel Maloney and our Deputy Insight Editor, Nikhil Raj Agawal. Welcome, Rachel and Nikhil, starting off with you, Nikhil. Obviously these numbers came out last week at what. It's just give us a brief breakdown of what they are and why they are so extraordinary. As Kat mentioned Kirkland has become the first firm ever to surpass $10 billion in revenue. Its revenue is approximately 20% year on year. Similarly so its purpose up more than 20% as compared to 2024 and it's got to a point where now it sits at $11.2 million just to put that into context. That equates to $30,500 a day for every equity partner. Simply not enough. I think most people have real difficulty in grasping actually how large those numbers are. It feels absolutely insane to most lay people that lawyers make that much money. It feels absolutely insane to most observers that one firm can generate that much cash. Rachel will talk about the history and the development of Kirkland and development of Big Law later in this pod. But let's talk very specifically about the past year. There has been mumbling in some quarters that there's been a bit of slow down in deals. It doesn't seem to have affected Kirkland's results. What's your reading of it? You'll see the US firm results coming out. They've been coming out over the last month or two. They've been good. Despite US firm partners complaining at me that Trump always manages to do something at the start of the year that creates uncertainty amongst clients. It's about how the year is going to go. We had tariffs last year that created uncertainty. This year it's obviously been the ongoing war in Iran, which has made partners on this side of the Atlantic quite nervous about how deals are going to go, especially if the war continues. We were in New York recently and I didn't get the impression that partners over there was that concerned about how that would affect deal flow. In terms of the deals, I think the year ahead is going to be strong, led by the states. But if the war continues, I think there'll be quite a lot of concern that the deals might slow down here. I think there's a rising tide. We haven't had lay-them's results yet. But all the indications are that lay-them's had a great year as well. There isn't a monstrous anomaly. It is the biggest version of big law and big law is getting bigger and richer. On that level, it is of a piece with its competitors to some extent. Let's go back to 20 or so years ago. It feels like their rise has been fast. I mean, Coatland is a Chicago firm. Although it's got a gigantic New York office, it is a Chicago firm in its roots. And it was always the scrappy firm, Sidley Austin. And, you know, Coatland did not have a blue chip practice. It didn't have blue chip clients. It wasn't in with the banks. It was a scrappy litigation, venture capital, as it was then firm. But of course, it's the rise of a venture capital/private capital that has buoyed it. There have been other firms that have been in early venture capital. But Coatland has been different from many. And I would argue that one of the reasons it's different is because of the leadership it has had at crucial moments. So there are plenty of firms that have done brilliantly out of private capital since the temperature is one. For example, Sidley, more latterly, has been building its practice and so on. I think over the last 10, 15 years, the leadership of Coatland have taken it very specifically to a new place. And in doing so have carved out a completely new type of law firm, doing different types of work. So where did all this start cast for Coatland? It's been at the top of the tree since 2017, as we said. But when did it come from in the sense when did it start being noticed by people and how did it get up so rapidly? I mean, it only took eight years really for Coatland to reach that high. There are two reasons. There's structural reason. There's the financial crash when the. I mean, we talked to a lot about this podcast about the shift in power of. and actually what that means for specific law firms. All of the firms that had very traditional ties to the investment banks struggled slightly. They had a bit of a stutter after the financial crash for Coatland because it had a massive bankruptcy practice as well was able to ride that anyway. But also it also hitched its start to, you know, Bane and Madison Dearborn and so on. And they really started to create the private capital industry became incredibly powerful around the time of the financial crash. So that's the structural reason. But there's a there's a leadership reason as well because it's not just about great tides of history. Sometimes it's about the people making the most of the opportunities. And the key person here is Jeff Hammers. And Jeff Hammers became chair in 2009. He'd been a Chicago partner by all accounts, very bullish kind of guy, very aggressive. But clearly a visionary and absolutely decided it was time to in a time of crisis is was was time to build out. And so you saw early on in his leadership, you saw a big expansion into Texas where it took a local Simpson thatcher partner. Andy Coulter, who is still at the firm and very powerful within it. And that brought in, of course, so much energy work, which is still sort of the bull work of quite a lot of that of Coatland's practice, certainly down there. It's shift, Hammers shifted Coatland's remuneration model slightly. It now rewards team performance over individual, over individual performance. And there's quite a lot of myths about Kirkland saying it's very individualistic actually to a large extent partners are judged on how many how much work they can bring in to their other partners as well. But really it was about very, very aggressive and targeted hiring out of firms that were seen as at that point, incredibly far above Kirkland. So, you know, in London, it hired David Higgins out of Freshfield, who was and still is an absolute M&A star. I was going to actually add that on those higher some of them have just been brilliant and I'm speaking specifically about London and that regards. You see a lot of churn amongst the junior partners, but in terms of the senior ones they've made the the majority of them have worked out. I think I mean, one of their early ones from the past sort of just over the decade was linked was linked later as Matt Elliott on the real estate private equity side. He's now incredibly powerful in London, so he's been there well over a decade. You've also got a Nicola Dagh from A&O now Sherman, who is on the IP litigation side. Some of these hires were just top draw hires. They've all stayed. There hasn't been churn over those senior ranks and they've shown that, you know, a firm like Kirkland can make them and make them work. And to be honest, that's why a lot of the partners in Kirkland, they get quite annoyed about the talk of that culture because they say actually it's just like a magic circle firm because most of the partners have come from the magic circle. That's the culture they're actually trying to recreate. And there's been some also really great hires in New York to where people out in New York saw I think there was a team from Scadlin that joined right recently, a guy called Graham Robinson and his team on the corporate side. I think quite a lot of partners are quite jealous that those hires were made and they would have liked that team too. Yeah, Scadlin actually was an early sort of casualty, if you like, because David Fox, who joined Kirkland was in 2009, he was like Scadlin's biggest M&A partner again, you know, that the audacity that Kirkland had in actually sort of approaching these people and convincing them that they could they could actually build a career. And you know, they were taking people out of Simpson, that they took people out of Kravath, I mean this again completely unheard of so there is a real, there is a real confidence about about sort of the culture and actually what they can offer. I would actually not agree with you Rachel. about the magic circle being a culture that they want to emulate. I think they don't want to emulate magic circle culture. The partners, the current partners that I talk to are quite contentious of magic circle culture because including those who've actually been in the magic circle, because they see it as occasionally sclerotic, it doesn't reward merit, it doesn't reward input or output. And I think there is a sort of a, I mean, they don't really care about the magic circle. I'm really honest. I mean, they don't even think about it that much. So I think there's also a sort of the narrative, which is sort of US firms versus magic circle, is not something I think that many current partners in London recognize it. Certainly don't recognize it in New York. I mean, magic circles are relevant. Then rightly so that they don't care about the magic circle, because why would a firm like Kirkland, which has got its papers be said that more than $11 million now care about a firm at the top end of the UK to $100 magic circle firm, has a pep of about $2.5 to $3 million pounds. And what is it about this model that has really cessed apart from other firms? Because in many ways, lots of these other firms could have done what makes them different. They've got enough money to be able to pay the stars, number one, and they are able to pay the stars in a flexible way. This is something that the big US, I should say, New York elite, were very, very resistant to do. So on the back of Kirkland's incursions, Davis, Paul, and Kravath and Cleary, they've all changed their cons systems in the last few years, all of them. And even Kravath has, which was a sort of a bit of a holdout. I mean, so all of them, many of the big Manhattan firms have now introduced non-equity partner layers. And that's been a big cultural problem, I think, for many, many years. And that is, again, as a direct result of what Kirkland has ushered into the market, which is a real ferocious competition based on wielding a checkbook to get talent out of particular places. I think the only thing that I would like to add about, you mentioned about the hires that they made. And the fact that Rachel, you said that there hasn't been a lot of churn at the senior level. What's even more telling is that even when there has been churn, even when there have been teams of people who have left, it's really not made a difference to Kirkland. When the likes of Neil Sashthayven, Roger Johnson, left for Paul Weiss, or earlier when they had an exodus, to Sidley, I think it was about seven or eight years ago, none of that actually made a difference to Kirkland. Their growth was just unstoppable. Yeah, and it's funny. People don't even talk about the exits, the Sashthayven, Johnson exits to Paul Weiss anymore. It's like, Paul Weiss does what it does. Kirkland does what it does. They don't seem to be linked, really, in the kind of the wider imagination anymore. I mean, the loss of Sashthayven and Roger Johnson, all those people to Paul Weiss, I would say, let's not pretend that that's not a significant team. It is a significant team. It's just Kirkland is able to weather these storms incredibly, incredibly well, and that team's doing well at Paul Weiss as well. There was another move earlier this year on the other side of the Atlantic that caused quite a lot of chata in the market, actually, which was David Nemechek, who is known for doing a lot of what is called liability management exercises, LMEs, which is basically a way of sorting out companies' troubles without them going off to the bankruptcy course. Chapter 11s are exceedingly expensive, and this is a way of sorting it out. But the issue with them is that it can spawn litigation. It means that you've got disagreements between a company's borrowers and its creditors, and this often involves the big private capital houses that are Kirkland's main clients. And I don't want to spend too long on this, but Kirkland had a client, which was called Optimum, which Nemechek had been advising on debt renegotiations. Optimum, you might better know as altice in the USA, which is a big telecoms company. And essentially it emerged that there were issues between should Kirkland stand by its private capital clients, or should it stand by its corporate client, which was Optimum, which was essentially Nemechek, which Nemechek was advising. And they decided to go with the big private capital houses. And he has since moved to Simpson, Sasha, which is a big move in the States. I think a lot of people are watching that because they expect that team to build out quite a lot. It's already led to the two departures from Kirkland to that team as well. - What do you read into that, Rachel? - I mean, Nemechek is very well known. He's got a really great practice. So this has been very high profile, the exits. It's been covered widely in the market. A lot of people in New York were talking about it. And a lot of firms, I think, wanted to hire him as well, but in the end, Simpson, Sasha got home. - I'm sure while was disappointed. I believe while was disappointed. It's important because it's not going to affect Kirkland's revenue or ongoing success, even though he has a great practice. It will weather the storm as it did before. It's important because it shows how tied Kirkland is to its private capital clients, how loyal it is that it's not prepared to annoy them in any way, at all. And it will do that at the expense of really great people. I mean, the irony is we were talking about talent earlier. Nemechek is talent. But the money comes from the private capital clients. I think that's what it shows. I think that's why it's important. - And also, when a firm gets so big, there's going to be conflicts, particularly in a world that is. There's a huge amount of restructuring at the moment, whether they're formal restructuring or not. There's a lot of inter-credits to battles and so on, in an uncertain world. Nemechek won't be the first time this happens to Kirkland or any other very, very large firm. - Yeah, there's an irony there really isn't it. It's all about the talent, but no one rainmaker is really bigger than the firm. - The advantage of being the machine that Kirkland is, there are advantages and disadvantages. In this case, the advantage is that even with the pool white exits, if you lose 40 people, however many went to pool white in the end, it doesn't affect them in the long term, which is crazy, because it would affect a firm like Whok-Tel, like Kravass. If that many people left in one go. - And thinking of sort of the pathways for associates. I mean, that is, the Kirkland career path is very, very attractive for ambitious lawyers, because there is a very, very clear road that says, come in, you can work your butt off, you're going to get paid absolutely loads, you might have a shot at partner, but we'll give you this badge of partner beforehand. This is very, very well known, and there's a lot of people who've been very sniffy about the Kirkland approach, which is to make up three years, or now actually it's been extended to four years. We understand of non-equity partners. But saying they're just senior associates with a partnership badge, et cetera, et cetera, but it's worked. It's, you know, when you've got a whole bunch of ambitious people, that is a really, really big spur, and very not all of them make it to equity, and then they go somewhere else. But it's sort of seen as that's the standard way that Kirkland do it, and that is actually what's behind quite a lot of the partnership reviews that we've seen in some of the major elite firms, saying actually we're going to add in a non-equity lawyer. Yeah, when you offered the opportunity of theoretically becoming partner in five years at Kirkland, or waiting 15 years at Freshfields, or something like that, I mean, no brainer for some people. Absolutely. One observation you can make, I suppose, is that Kirkland's rise has come off the back of the private capital market. That's obvious. But how much of its rise is purely because it bet on that market, in many ways, whereas obviously some more traditional firms remain with you more traditional, institutional, financial clients, is it the fact that Kirkland's amazing, or is it the fact that they actually just picked the right horse? I think they did pick the right horse, but they're now in a situation where they know the private capital industry so well that they can spot trends probably quicker than new challenges potentially. So I'll give you an example. I mean, the Houston play is really part of that. For a long time, there are a lot of firms that weren't that interested in infra PE. And now it's a staple part of most of the large firms. I mean, Latham's big in it, Gibson Darn, you name it. But when Kirkland started going for infra PE partners in London, there was some disquire actually within Kirkland London saying, why don't we want to get into infra? This is just basically projects, isn't it? So there was a bit of a pushback. But fundamentally, they spotted this new sort of asset class really fast. And I think they've been doing the same with digital. They're not the only ones to do that, by the way. But they're able to spot actually too luck quite fast because of it. I actually think they were quite slow to infrastructure PE. I think there were other firms that had got in before them. And they took less sweet time to actually realise that it was something they should do. maybe because the partners you might be suggesting. weren't quite sure about it, but in the end they did get a really good team in London. So it just goes to show that even if you are slow, you can't actually get the people you want in the end. And I think Rachel, you're identifying there the fact that not all of the big offices necessarily marry up necessarily aligned. So I think you're right, London was slow, but Houston being there for ages and Texas is a massive, you know, it just throws off money for Kirkman hugely. So yeah, I think, and it's the same with Germany to a large extent, you know, they've had, I wouldn't say they've had problems, but you know, it's been a little bit in and out. They haven't, they're offering has not necessarily been sort of a smooth alignment with what they do in the States, but I think there's a little bit more discipline on that now. A criticism that's been levied at it before is that this sort of juggernaut rise has got to burn out at some point and then that could result in a bit of a crash. It's basically on a high sugar diet. That seems to not necessarily have proven, well, there's definitely not proven true, but is it's place at the top of the tree still secure or is it going to be, are there, are there others snapping at its heels? I think we all have different answer to that. I think my, my view is that as long as private capital is the dominant business force in the States, then Kirtland has a very, very, you know, that it's going to be top of the tree. I mean, there are firms like, you know, Watt-Tan and Kravath who are much, you know, they're focused much more on public company M&A and strategic M&A and so on and that, you know, they'll still always be around. But again, you know, when Rachel and I were in New York the other week, you know, it is, it is now normal to speculate and it, people aren't felt, and people don't think it's a lunatic speculation that Watt-Tan and Kravath's days, if not numbered because they're not, but you know, that they can't continue as a sort of a credible financial force in quite the same way. So, to actually, to answer your question, Christian, I mean, nothing in business lasts forever anyway. There could be another type of crash that could completely usher in a different type of law, and we all know that and God knows there are enough sort of weirdnesses that are happening in the world at the moment with various economic currents. But actually, I think the interesting thing about Kirkland, and you could say this to some extent with Latham, the interesting thing about Kirkland is that they don't necessarily think of themselves as the incumbents at all. You speak to most Kirkland partners and especially the senior ones. They, I mean, they're not sort of always staring at the competition, but they're hyper aware of the competition and they want to be the best. And that is, that is to an extent that I haven't seen in that many other major law firms. And some major law firms, and I'm thinking Paul Hastings is a good example where the management is imposing a very highly competitive culture from the top, competitive with other firms, I mean. But this is actually part of the Kirkland DNA. You know, they are all about, can we serve this client? Can we be all over these particular clients, all of them at all times and cover every single part of private capital? I don't see things changing. As Kat said, if the private capital clients are there, Kirkland's going to remain on top. It's very focused on this, whereas its closest competitor is Latham. And the gap has been growing between the two. And that's not to say anything negative about Latham where, you know, people really hold those two on the same sort of level in terms of what they're doing, in terms of how they've been the, for years, the challenger brands. And in New York, they've just, you know, Latham's come out of LA and Kirkland's come out of Chicago. The comparison is very easy to make there. But the gap has been growing between the two. There's no denying that. So I think that will continue to grow because Latham's outlook is so much wider in terms of the clients it has. It's much more balanced on terms of the public work that it does, whereas Kirkland is much more focused on these private capital clients. And if they continue to give some work, I just see that gap growing. I think there is one, there is one tiny cloud in the horizon, no bigger than a man's hand. And it is that the sort of clients, the sort of clients that Kirkland have been acting for are so huge now and they've become huge sort of asset managers, aggregators, in some cases, massive insurance companies that those are of themselves, they are more institutional. And I think the sort of rates that Kirkland can charge that sort of client will be coming under much more scrutiny. You know, at the moment it's on the whole private capital clients, well, they don't seem to be quibbling at the gigantic sort of Kirkland bills. But I think the more that those clients themselves morph, there may well be a reckoning, you know, AI, of course, all of this kind of stuff. So I think there is sort of structurally, probably some issues to address there, but not just yet because we still haven't seen, you know, we're still to talk to the GC's that mone about it, but they still don't actually enforce more billing discipline, particularly. You mentioned about how, you know, things should go wrong if the financial market's changed and there's a crash or private capital becomes a less popular form of finance. But at the same time, they are actually not badly hedge, particularly in the US, like you said, they rode out the financial crisis in 2008. They still make about a third of their money from disputes. They are still the largest disputes firm in the world by their revenue. They are larger than Quinn. They didn't used to be, but they took over several years ago now. They made not the most recent year just gone, but the year before in 2024, they made just shy of $3 billion from $2.99 billion, basically, from their disputes work. And given sort of Quinn Immanuel's not domination, but the size and scale of its disputes practice, it really is something to behold that Kirkland manages to still beat them and have a whole lot of money to get them out of the way. They haven't done that so much outside of the US. That's still more of a US play for them than otherwise. But it's very much there. I think it's worth pointing out that they're not the only firm that is doing really, really well in terms of their profitability and their pap and that sort of thing. The numbers came out this week as well and the hit was $9.5 million, so not too far behind Kirkland's and what's one and a half million dollars between friends. Nothing. Yeah, litigation is actually a big part of Kirkland and Alice. And they did something quite interesting last year, which has come through into this year, actually. You might have seen earlier this year that Kirkland opened an office in of all places, which is a Nashville. Who knew? And that is very interesting and actually linked to litigation because last year it hired a big team of 13 disputes partners, 13. Across different locations, it was in New York, Austin, Houston and LA from King and Spalding, but it was also people that worked together, another firm called Butler Snow. And some of those people are the ones that have launched this Nashville office this year. And we're not saying I don't think that Nashville is, you know, I don't think these people are going to be acting for big Nashville clients. I think this is all about these people of exceedingly talented Kirkland wanted them, but it just so happened that they wanted to spend more of their time in Nashville, you know, that was, might have been their home or their base. Kirkland is a sort of firm that will look ahead and think about how can we get these people on side and that's the way to do it. And it's very clever and it's going to work. We sort of saw it before and that they hired a funds partner last year from one of the funds firms in Luxembourg called Elvinger. And I think this, and even though they work in the London office, I think we can assume that they sort of split their time, that's something that Kirkland does successfully in terms of talent finding no matter where these people are. And I think that's very interesting and linked to litigation. But of course, you know, there's going to be, you're absolutely right. I mean, I think, you know, that it is the Nashville opening is taken by most people as it must be a town play, although there is, I'm told, you know, a very good VC scene there around Medtech and, you know, the university and so on. But I think there's also a sense of, you know, can you imagine if you're running a really successful firm in Nashville and you're keeping your associates happy and Kirkland show up? I mean, it's like, oh my God, that means we've got to keep all, we've got to do loads of pay high because we've got to do all of this kind of stuff. So they are always going to be a disruptive influence anywhere they go because, and I think also their reputation precedes them so much because it's like, you know, you hear the soundtrack of the George Music of the shark before you see it and this is what is, this is what is happening in Nashville at the moment. And on Nashville as well, Rachel, loyal readers of the lawyer.com may have seen Horizon recently about Kirkland potentially launching in Milan because KKR is rumored to be going into Italy itself. So there is an element where they sort of just need to follow the follow the money in that sense because of KKRs, they then they might need to be there as well. Yes, but they could very easily hire somebody that sort of does that dual thing like they've done with Luxembourg, which is to hire a someone who's got incredibly good knowledge of the Milan market, but maybe spends time here in split. So I don't think they actually need a base in Milan where they could do that, they could do that, it could work. And I think there's also, I mean, for Milan, you know, Germany is still very, very strong for Kirkland. There's not, you know, there's been sort of tit for tat poaching out of latheum and fresh fields and all of this kind of stuff, but you know, essentially it's got a, it's got a pretty solid base and there's some real stars there. Nikhil, what's your view about doing year for Kirkland in terms of what they likely to be seen on? Well, they're likely to be seen on plenty of things this year and not just in the UK, but across the continent. We are working on what we call the live auction tracker at the lawyer, where we're analyzing live bits that are going on the continent as we speak and we've analyzed all 80 deals. The huge chunk of them are of course in the UK at 20 on deals, but then France has 50 in deals. Italy has 12 deals, Germany has 10 deals, off the deals that we're looking at. I'm sure that there are plenty more that are not on our radar, but there will be plenty more. And that's across different sectors from tech to energy and intra to financial services and so on and so forth. And they're all attracting all the classic bidders that Kirkland would probably be acting for, the SKKR, the Blackstone, the ZQT, the Bain. All these are the top bidders as far as all these deals are concerned. They're all bidding on multiple auctions and I'm sure KKR is bound to be on most of them if not all. Yeah, and you know, Stain P, all of these houses that Kirkland's really embedded into. And that goes to the point right at the top of this podcast, is there a deal to slow down? Could Kirkland be the sort of a casualty of all of this? Well, you know, looking at your auction trucker, Nicky, I don't think that's the case at all. I think this is just, it's for the birds. Absolutely, I don't think there's going to be a slow down in deals. And even when we looked at the deals for this quarter, for instance, there's been, there may have been fewer deals, but the value of deals has been much more. So regardless, the amount of work that comes to firms is going to increase. It's not going to slow down. The suggested threat for Kirkland in particular, but a number of other similar firms as well is AI, of course. A lot of what is going on in their work is just bodies and lots of people doing these deals. And that's the sort of thing that AI will be able to assist with to a large extent. I mean, how threatening do you think they think that is? You don't hear an awful lot of anxiety. I mean, I think Kirkland would just switch to value billing and just say, you know what, fine, we won't, we'll still make all the money because we're still going to charge you that. We just won't charge you by the hour. I think it's a bit of a mirage, simply in the sense that that's a threat to all big law. It's not just Kirkland. Everyone has leverage. I mean, I would accept, funnily enough, what Tell and Kravath from that that trades much more on the sort of much lower leverage. But I don't see what Tell and Kravath massively investing in huge AI either. So I think this is too much of an infancy yet. But I think, yeah, I suspect that it is, it is a more, at the moment, an intellectual challenge, I think, for everyone. But you know what, Kirkland have got absolutely loads of knowledge partners. You know, they are not, they are people who actually look after the, in a sense, the intellectual property of the firm, run all the knowledge systems. You know, there is clearly going to be, and it's, it's recognised as being highly sophisticated and one of the best in the market. You know, of course, that's going to be digitised. Of course, that's going to be codified. Of course, that's going to be AI's up to its hilt. I think for the moment, it's too hard for us to say, oh, AI will come and will actually kill Kirkland. That's, that's what Wattell would like, like you to believe. I don't believe that to be the case, at least not in the short term. And they moved so quickly, don't they? I remember with Covid, do you remember, there was so much work spanning from Covid that Kirkland was one of the many firms that I think really hired big to make sure they could do all this work. And then ultimately after Covid, they had to really think about how much people they actually had on the stocks because the work had gone down. They moved quickly and obviously not everyone would have been happy with what they decided to do, which was, they had some so-called performance reviews that ultimately resulted in some changes in the workforce. They will continue to do that if they see the market changing, I think. Well, unfortunately, if you were tuning into this podcast in the hope that we might be about to predict the demise of Kirkland and that your firm was going to be coming up to take its place, we're sorry to disappoint you. It looks like it's a Kirkland world that we live in now. It is a Kirkland world we live in except not everyone can have 11 million dollars a year. Thank you very much for listening out there. We'll be back again in a fortnight with another podcast, but until then you take care and goodbye. Goodbye.