BDO revenues fall 7%
Simon Michaels, BDO's managing partner, forecasts "steady progress" this year after "challenging conditions", with an eye on winning former Audit Commission work
BDO, THE UK’S sixth largest firm, has posted revenues of £312.2m, down 7% on the previous financial year.
Despite the decrease, managing partner Simon Michaels (pictured) forecast “steady progress” for next year, after a strong second half in the financial year for the 12 months to July 2010.
Michaels added that BDO was also keen to help the public sector at an advisory level in the wake of the Audit Commission being scrapped.
Except for corporate finance, all of BDO’s service lines – including audit, business restructuring and tax – suffered revenue decreases.
The increase in corporate finance was due to an upturn in transactional work, but activity in this area – which has been lucrative for BDO in the past – was still nowhere near previous highs.
“Figures published in BDO’s annual report reflect the continuing challenging economic climate for both the profession and our clients,” BDO said.
“The firm has always undertaken high levels of transactional work and the continued lack of activity in the calendar year 2009 resulted in a 7% reduction in national turnover, to £312.2m for the year ended June 2010, in line with forecast, with a stronger performance in the first half of 2010.”
The stronger performance was reflected by the profits pot for BDO’s 200 partners increasing to £60.8m from £58.7m the previous year.
Michaels pinpointed increasing activity in global outsourcing compliance, expanding from the firm’s core mid-market clients to larger corporates, internal audit work and the public sector as the areas the firm was concentraing on.
“Our plans are ambitious,” Michaels said. “Not only do we want to deliver the best client service experience in our industry but we want to profitably grow in a number of areas and have got an open mind about how we might achieve this.”