Mid-tier firm spins off consulting arm
Howarth Clark Whitehill has become the first accounting firm outside of the Big Four to announce plans to separate out its consulting arm from its main accounting business.
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The firm, ranked 14th largest in the UK, according to the Accountancy Age Top 50 will separate its management consulting practice, Horwath Consulting, from the core accountancy practice.
The newly formed organisation, to be known as Blue Spark Consulting, will be financially independent of HCW, although it will retain the existing staff of Horwath Consulting.
The business will be run by Michael Caudrey and Kevin Miller, currently partners in HCW, who will take over the consulting practice on 1 January 2003.
David Furst, chief executive of HCW, said, ‘Our desire is to be one step ahead of regulations that will inevitably be introduced to restrict the provision of consultancy services to audit clients.’
His comments come as the lobby, calling for accounting firms to spin off their non-audit arms, continues to grow in the wake of Enron and WorldCom, and as regulators in the US and the UK push for greater corporate governance and auditor independence.