BDO’s UK outfit records 27pc turnover boost
The UK arm of international accountancy and advisory firm BDO yesterday announced a 27 per cent increase in turnover for the financial year ended 4 July.
BDO saw its turnover grow to £384m. The firm also boosted operational profits by 42 per cent to £78m. The 2013/14 results were the first to reflect the company’s merger with London-based accountant PKF in April 2013, the company said.
Simon Michaels, BDO’s managing partner, told CityAM: “I’m very pleased with the year just gone. It reflects a couple of things: the firm having invested through the recession, completing a significant merger and the economic recovery, have contributed to the increased volume of business. The firm is moving forward in a very strong market position.”
Across the board, BDO’s primary businesses all experienced significant growth over the period. Turnover in the audit business rose 19 per cent to £128m and in the tax business by 21 per cent to £99m.
Of most significance, however, BDO’s advisory business grew 39 per cent to £157m.
“The advisory market has come through in a number of areas. A strengthening economy tends to lead to more transactions, and we’ve got a big transactional business with our advisory offering. So looking at transactional support, IPOs, M&A etc, has seen a big hike recently, and we’ve been able to capitalise on that,” said Michaels.
“We’ve also seen the market growing in relation to the more complex forensic work we’ve been doing: expert witness, litigation support, arbitration work and so on. And that’s the same for financial services advisory work, and more widely our risk advisory services. They’ve all driven the growth,” he added.
And Michaels anticipates seeing further growth in the year to come, both domestically and internationally. “Though UK growth will be slightly below last year,” he stated.