Advisory firm goes from strength to strength in region

Professional services firm EY has reported UK fee income growth of 2.7% to £2.41bn for the last 12 months.

The increase means that the average pay out to partners in the firm will be just under £700,000.

The 2.7% increase is half the rate of its previously-slowest growth in the last eight years, although it still reached a record high.

The accountancy firm’s growth was also just half the rate of growth of two of its competitors – PwC’s UK revenues were up 5% to £3.76bn and Deloitte rose 6% to £3.58bn. KPMG UK reports its annual results in December.

The total from £2.35bn in the previous year, with a five year compound annual growth rate of 7%.

Tax grew by 7.3%, advisory by 3.8% and transaction advisory services was up by 1.5%.

Distributable profits before tax increased by 1.7% from £464m in 2017 to £472m in 2018.

The firm, which employs more than 14,500 people and has 681 partners in the UK, saw average distributable profit per partner increase by 2.4% to £693,000, compared to £677,000 in 2017.

EY’s 655-strong North West practice, which includes offices in Manchester and Liverpool, saw staff numbers grow by 4% during the year.

The growth has allowed EY to invest in its people with a number of high level strategic hires or relocations from London.

The firm has set up a new global trade team in the North, with the appointment of Onelia Angelosanto as director of the team based in Manchester.

The team was set up in response to growing demand for support and advice from businesses involved in international trade.

EY’s transactions advisory services has been strengthened with the arrival of Rob Jones, who has relocated from London.

The North West Transactions Advisory Services team grew further with the appointment of Paul Stott as director. Paul joined from ENER-G, where he was group transaction finance manager.

EY’s North West Transaction Advisory Services team enjoyed another very strong year with a number of high profile private equity and corporate transactions.

Notable deals that the team worked on during the year include Old Mutual Global Investors’ investments in both The Hut Group and Secret Escapes, Inflexion’s investment in Radius Payment Solutions and the disposal of Damovo to Eli Global.

During the period to the end of June the firm made five senior manager and director promotions, as well as promoting Anne Wong in EY’s Manchester tax team to associate partner.

It promoted Hilary Heap and Mark Clephan, both in the transactions advisory services team, to equity partners further underlining the strong demand in the transactions market.

Since the year end EY has appointed Graham Wright and Stephen Littler as equity partners while Alex Williams and Richard Barnes have been promoted to associate partner.

Bob Ward, North West Senior Partner at EY, said: “Our strong performance is underpinned by EY’s strategy of investing in growth across the regions and I’m proud to be able to say that we have invested significantly in ensuring we can support businesses across all our service lines using people who are based in the North.

“Ongoing investment in senior talent, alongside our graduate and apprentice recruitment, reflects not only our growing ambition for and commitment to our offering to North West companies but also our confidence in the long-term outlook for this region’s economy.”

“Moreover EY’s growing national cyber team has Manchester as its hub, with more than 25 people based here, servicing and supporting EY clients across the country at a time when information security and resilience is moving up the boardroom agenda of all businesses.”

The North West practice took on 64 graduates during the year and welcomed 18 apprentices to EY’s Business Apprenticeship programme, which offers young people an alternative to university – a 50% increase on the previous year.

Bob Ward said: “I’m particularly proud of our Business Apprenticeship programme and the investment we are making in our people and the talent line we are nurturing, both in the North West and nationally.

“From EY’s perspective, we believe apprentices are key to our business, they help to drive creative thinking and bring us into the future of work.”