Burford Capital

Burford Capital, founded in 2009, provides specialized finance to the legal market. It operates as a finance and professional services company worldwide with principal offices in New York, London and Chicago. The company offers financing to lawyers and clients engaged in litigation and arbitration, asset recovery and other legal finance and advisory activities.

History
Burford was founded by Christopher Bogart as a way to fund legal cases. The company was launched with Jonathan Molot in 2009.

Burford has been publicly traded on the London AIM Stock Exchange (BUR:LN) since October 2009 and issued further shares in a follow-on in 2010. In 2017, Burford received the AIM Award for Innovative Fundraising of the Year.

On 7 August 2019, Muddy Waters Research cited issues with Burford's fair value accounting practices and of misrepresenting its returns on invested capital and rates of return. Burford responded to each of the seven claims made by Muddy Waters, raising what it called “many factual inaccuracies”. On 12 August 2019, Burford alleged it had identified evidence consistent with “illegal market manipulation” of its shares in the run up to a short attack. Three days later, on 15 August 2019, Burford announced the replacement of its chief finance officer, the spouse of the chief executive officer.

On 21 June 2021, Burford Capital announced it had successfully been paid $103m USD, resulting from the divorce settlement between Farkhad Akhmedov, a Russian businessman and Tatiana Akhmedova. Bloomberg claims the total settlement was $186m USD. Burford Capital were successful in financing the litigation and were paid over 55% of the total settlement, which contributed $20m to its 2021 operating profit, according to Burford Capital.

In March 2024, Burford Capital announced increased earnings per share of $2.74, driven by a tripling of consolidated total revenues to $1.1 billion in 2023.