PwC vows to hold top spot

PricewaterhouseCoopers became the first UK firm to achieve a turnover of more than £2bn in a year this week, while announcing lacklustre results.

PricewaterhouseCoopers failed to grow as strongly as its biggest rival Deloitte in 2007, with chairman Kieran Poynter insisting its top spot would not be threatened by John Connolly’s firm.

When asked if PwC would still be the biggest firm next year, Poynter said: ‘Without a shadow of a doubt.’

The firm grew fee income by 6% to £2.1bn for year-end 30 June 2007, while Deloitte increased fee income by 15.6% to take revenues over £1.8bn.

Poynter also issued a warning over the impact of the credit crunch on revenues next year.

‘Unless financial issues arise from debt capital markets, where that becomes a big negative influence, I would expect to see good growth across the practice,’ he said.
Assurance revenues grew by just 4% in the last year, to £947m, due to tailing-off of clients’ Sarbox and IFRS activity.

Its tax practice was buoyed by the strong transactions market, with the service line increasing 13% to £667m.

The firm made £71m from the sale of the Southwark Towers lease, it said. The tower is going when the Shard of Glass is built around London Bridge station, with staff expected to move to the More London complex, where E&Y is already based.

The firm also recorded a sharply reduced pension deficit of just £58m, after its moves to bolster the scheme in the last 18 months.

The firm posted total profits of £702m, with underlying profits of £631m. Profit per partner grew 6% to £757,000, with partner numbers up to 822.

Poynter said that the firm’s growing provision of sustainability and climate change services would eventually move from advisory into the firm’s assurance department as they became regulated within audit, but this was unlikely in the medium-term.