By: Maria Ward-Brennan

Professional Services Editor Maria Ward-Brennan is the Professional Services Editor at CityAM, focused on law, Big Four, and other management and accounting consulting firms. She was previously a litigation reporter at The Lawyer. Contact her via email at [email protected] or X (Twitter) @MariaW_B.

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United Utilities taps shareholders for £800m as it unveils investment plans

April 30, 2026

One of UK’s largest listed water company United Utilities is making a submission to the regulator to increase its investment capacity in a bid to fuel expansion plans. The FTSE 100 firm is calling for Ofwat to lift its AMP8 budget, the five year investment period running until 2030, to £11.5bn from £9bn, to match [...]
City law firms clamp down on the equity cookie jar

April 30, 2026

Law firms are tightening access to equity partnerships to protect profits, increasingly reserving the equity pool for top performers, writes Maria Ward-Brennan. As the Big Four giants dominate the headlines with internal changes, the firms are seeking to regain control of their expanded equity pools amid profitability problems. These giants are looking to mirror what [...]
Private equity investment fuels major overhaul of Grant Thornton’s associate scheme

April 29, 2026

Professional services giant Grant Thornton is launching a “brand new associate programme” for its 2027 cohort of associates, CityAM can reveal, as private equity investment from Cinven sets the firm’s ambition for significant growth. The firm voted in favour of an investment from private equity firm Cinven in 2024. Speaking to CityAM, Abigail [...]
Meet the startup backed by Peter Thiel that wants to ‘hold journalists to account’

April 28, 2026

Founder Aron D’Souza spoke to Maria Ward-Brennan about his Peter Thiel-backed startup, which aims to hold journalists accountable by providing real-time ratings and investigations into their reporting practices. There exists a lively debate about the extent to which AI could replace journalists, but before it does that – could it develop a hold over the [...]
Golden partnership perks? Not anymore, say the Big Four

April 27, 2026

As the Big Four giants grapple with profitability challenges, the traditional partnership model is undergoing significant change to prevent the profit pool from being diluted. The traditional dream at professional services firms – joining, working hard and climbing the ladder to partnership within an LLP structure – now looks very different at the Big Four [...]
FTSE 100 Live: Stocks dip as oil prices surge to three-week high

April 27, 2026

Good morning and welcome back to the CityAM liveblog. There’s set to be little relief in markets this morning as investors return from the weekend to oil hitting a three-week high. The price of Brent crude – the international benchmark for oil prices – rose two per cent to over $107 on Monday morning. [...]
Big Four carnage as KPMG swings the jobs axe on both sides of the Pond

April 24, 2026

On the back of KPMG taking the shears to its partners’ headcount in the UK, around 140 audit partners across the Atlantic are now set to lose their jobs. The Big Four firm is set to cut about 10 per cent of its 1,400 US audit partners to reduce its bloated headcount. The move comes [...]
Magic circle Freshfields to co-build legal AI with Anthropic

April 24, 2026

Magic circle law firm Freshfields has signed a multi-year agreement with AI giant Anthropic, giving the firm easy access to Anthropic’s latest AI models and collaborating to help design Anthropic’s next-generation offerings. As part of the deal, Freshfields has rolled out Anthropic’s Claude models to its entire global workforce of 5,700 users across 33 offices, [...]
Aer Lingus slashes Summer schedule as Hormuz blockade bites

April 23, 2026

Irish commercial darling Aer Lingus has cancelled hundreds of flights from its summer schedule amid growing jet fuel fears stemming from the blockade at the Strait of Hormuz. The airline is axing scheduled transatlantic, European, and local flights on various days over the coming weeks, according to the Irish Independent. Services set to be affected [...]
Regulator fines PwC £95m over Chinese Evergrande audit

April 23, 2026

The Hong Kong regulator fined PwC Hong Kong a landmark HK$1bn (£95m) for its role as auditor for the now-liquidated property giant, China Evergrande Group. Back in Janaury 2023, PwC resigned as Evergrande’s auditor following a series of disagreements with the heavily-indebted property developer over its audit of the firm’s 2021 accounts. This came after [...]

Andy Burnham commits to triple lock despite backlash over ‘unsustainable’ policy

UK social media ban blow to sports rights holders using TikTok and YouTube

The best places to eat sandwiches in Lisbon, from bifanas to pregos

By: Maria Ward-Brennan

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