Deloitte dimisses China growth plans

Speaking as Deloitte announced global revenues soaring by 18.6%, Jim Quigley told Accountancy Age that the Chinese ambition to provide competitors to the Big Four would falter once its companies grew too large.

‘I think each economy has its own sense of national pride, its own sense of wanting to do things its own way. [But] as Chinese companies diversify sources of their income they will need professional services firms with strong international networks. That will be the challenge of developing additional large Big Four firms in China,’ Quigley said.

The idea of Chinese challengers to western firms has been discussed by Chinese officials. ‘As Chinese companies list abroad, we also hope the audit firms can go global too,’ one was quoted saying recently.

The move has even been seen as a radical answer to the audit choice debates troubling regulators in western economies.

John Connolly, the UK Deloitte chief executive, has suggested that mid-tier firms could seek tie-ups with emerging Chinese firms. ‘Emerging opportunities could exist for mid-tier firms to combine with one of the large Chinese firms where the Big Four do not have a dominant position.’

Quigley admitted that getting into emerging market economies was difficult, as he unveiled strong earnings growth across the key Asia Pacific region. Revenue grew by an astonishing 30.3% to $3.2 billion (£1.6bn) there.

Deloitte’s rival PwC have had well-noted problems in Russia over its audit of Yukos and other issues. Quigley agreed that Russia was a difficult market.

He said: ‘I don’t know that I would use the word risky. You have to be focused on client acceptance processes, and a real commitment to meeting needs and requirements in a sensitive way. You can’t go in with a bunch of expats and believe you are operating in another Western economy.’

Quigley also warned rivals who have consolidated into global firms that they might lose out if they lost their local depth and knowledge base.

He said: ‘We are moving forward with the strategy we have, we want local depth and global reach.

‘Without one of those two you are going to underperform. If you are all about global… you are going to underperform.’

He added that the success of E &Y and KPMG’s merger moves would be ‘a matter of implementation’.