£100m turnover barrier broken by growing accountancy business

Michael Davidson

Accountacy group Haines Watts has released its latest financial results, with the firm breaking the £100m barrier by recording a £106m turnover in FY20.

Another year of double-digit revenue growth was achieved with 11% growth predominantly down to the group’s continued acquisitive ‘buy and build’ strategy.

And an increase in turnover flowed through from FY19’s new territories, as well as more recent acquisitions in the North East and Scotland.

Haines Watts has over 40 offices across the UK, including bases in Leeds, Doncaster, Hull, Grimsby and Scunthorpe.

Managing partner Michael Davidson said: “We are pleased to close off last year exactly where we thought we would be, with our acquisition strategy delivering the double-digit growth we have planned.

“Hitting the £100m mark as we enter our 90th year in business is a huge achievement and testament to everyone that works across the UK for the firm.

“With the addition of new businesses to our group, we are steadily expanding our service offering which is leading to a rounder advisory service with existing clients and generating new organic fee growth.

“Haines Watts is now able to advise wider on complex tax matters and private client work; we are fully able to provide business owners advisory support in today’s challenging climate.”

Profitability last year recorded an expected slower growth at 5%, which Davidson attributed to the firm investing heavily in tech and office environments, and a people recruitment strategy into new service line specialisms.

He continued: “We have seen in the last few weeks especially that our local to national model works well in times of change, we remain nimble enough to pivot to the climate for our clients by staying locally relevant but with the firepower, and manpower, of a national firm.

“This means we are seeing continued growth in new client acquisition in our SME sweet spot, whereby they have either outgrown a smaller accountant and need more advisory support or feel neglected by some of the largest firms who appear to be focusing their resource on higher value accounts.

“Brexit had been predicted to affect Q4 of FY20, but the impact has not been as great was expected, mainly due to the global pandemic. Issues like Duty and VAT are being kicked down the road, and we expect advisory work on Brexit to ramp up as this deadline gets closer this year.

“The Coronavirus pandemic has had a huge impact on our clients of course, but we are seeing that those clients who refuse to tolerate this deflection and move swiftly into business recovery mode are the most successful.

“We know that businesses will continue to avoid any non-critical spend, and reigning in advisory work may fall into that, but it’s a false economy and they need to resist the short termism of delaying addressing issues and/or the need to bring in advice early if they are to survive the impact.”

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