Pinsent Masons offloads Cerico

International law firm Pinsent Masons has sold Cerico, its Glasgow-based online compliance unit, to business and financial information giant Dow Jones for an undisclosed sum.

Pinsent Masons, which employs nearly 3,000 people worldwide, including some 1,500 lawyers and 400 partners, launched Cerico in 2013 as a joint venture with IT consultancy Campbell Nash, sub- sequently taking a majority stake in 2015.

It has since grown the business into a market leader in its field, delivering digital compliance tools for blue-chip companies, many of them in the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250.

As part of the transaction, Pinsent Masons will retain a “strategic relationship” with Dow Jones through which it will continue to provide the legal content for compliance solutions and deliver supplementary legal compliance support and consultancy to Dow Jones clients where required.

Cerico chief executive Jim Armstrong will move to Dow Jones with fellow director Julia Salmond alongside the organisation’s 15 staff. Richard Masters, former executive chairman of Cerico, will remain a partner at Pinsent Masons and head of the firm’s Scotland and Northern Ireland offices.

Richard Foley, senior partner at Pinsent Masons, said: “We are proud with what we have achieved with Cerico.”