Deloitte’s delight at 17% rise in profits

Sep 12 2007 by Iain Laing, The Journal

ACCOUNTANCY Deloitte has reported a 17% rise in profits available for distribution to partners and retired partners of £572m for the year.

The firm, which has a Newcastle office, saw profit before tax grow by 22.3% to £564m with very satisfactory performances across the four divisions but with profit growth in Audit growing more slowly, reflecting lower revenue growth in the core audit practice.

And revenues grew by 15.6% on the previous year to £1,802m at the business which now provides significant services to 95% of FTSE100 companies and have worked for over 80% of Central Government Departments, devolved administrations in Scotland and Northern Ireland and over 50 of the larger local authorities and regional bodies.

The Newcastle office performed well with strong results across all service lines, with the Tax and Audit divisions again experiencing the strongest growth, increasing revenues in excess of 24%.

Paul Williamson, senior partner at Deloitte in Newcastle, said:  “The office has had yet another excellent year, reflecting our investment in staff and our commitment to enhancing our service provision in addition to the growth experienced by our clients. Audit and Tax have done particularly well, with client wins, new projects and merger and acquisition work all contributing to the increase in work carried out.

“This really does show that the team’s continued hard work is really paying off.”

John Connolly, Deloitte’s Senior Partner and Chief Executive and Chairman of the Deloitte Global Organisation, said: “Our performance reflects strong markets creating growing opportunities to serve our clients, our strength in gaining new clients, the importance of London as both the primary global financial and professional services centre, and particularly, in the level of mergers and acquisition activity.

“In presenting information on our business divisions, we have recognised the particular wider stakeholder interest in our audit activity. We have expanded our presence across all client segments.”