Forensic evidence of continued growth at BDO
BDO Stoy Hayward is expecting increasing growth in its forensic services division as the credit crunch bites, it said this week as it unveiled double-digit growth for the first six months of the year
The corporate restructuring and forensic services divisions both grew at a
rate of 10% in the six months to December. Total national turnover for the
period increased £14.2m, from £145.6m to £159.8m.
Managing partner Jeremy Newman said he expected firms to toughen up in the
face of economic uncertainty and the recent high-profile fraud case at Société
Générale.
‘Increasingly, a significant proportion of restructuring work includes a
forensic element, which was not the case five or 10 years ago,’ he said. ‘There
is a lot more determination to do something about losses being caused by
failures along the line.’
The firm’s tax business showed the highest growth, at more than 20%.
‘Uncertainty over capital gains tax and the new rules for non-doms prompted a
lot of people to review their finances,’ said Newman.
BDO
was helped along by the acquisition of specialist tax firm Chiltern in October
last year.
Chiltern’s growth accounted for at least 5% of the total tax growth, which
Newman said was encouraging, given the short period of time since BDO had taken
over the firm.
‘I am hopeful we will see growth within the Chiltern business as well as our
own tax business,’ he said.