Canada's Accounting Top 30 for 2016
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Bottom Line April 2016 FOCUS 13 Firms prosper amid economic challenges By GUNDI JEFFREY Young, notes that “2015 was a espite a challenging transformative year for our profes- economy — courtesy of a sion. Despite a challenging Dplummeting Canadian economy, our team posted fantastic dollar, low oil prices and a resulting results and saw encouraging downturn in the western provinces growth in some key areas. A big — the country’s accounting profes- part of our success had to do with sion continued to prosper. Firm understanding and helping our cli- leaders agree that the positive ents adapt to new market dis- results are largely due to major ruptors. For example, we’re seeing investments they have made in technology start-ups competing strategic priority areas in recent directly with major banks and years to advise clients dealing with retailers, something that we weren’t the challenges of the future. seeing a few years ago. Our ability “Overall, 2015 was a good year to stay ahead of the curve helps us for the accounting profession,” to meet our clients’ evolving needs says KPMG CEO Bill Thomas, “as and continue to grow despite it continued to adjust to an increas- market challenges.” ingly complex environment shaped Those market challenges by changes to regulations, global- include increased global and ization and technology advances national regulation for firms and — all of which can be considered their clients, a changing audit both challenges and opportunities report, the impact of new audit for the industry.” regulation in Europe on Canadian “The challenging economic clients, increasing regulatory con- environment and changing social cerns over the upsurge in con- agenda have provided us with great sulting areas for firms – the major opportunities to advise clients,” contributor to revenue in recent competitive dynamic in the audit career options available to them to fall, nearly three quarters of Can- agrees Bill McFarland, PwC’s years – and increasing competitive market today continues to put obtain designations and relevant adian executives reported they had CEO. “Our success is built on the pressures. immense pressure on people in training.” M&A plans for the next year. That significant investments we’ve BDO’s CEO Pat Kramer notes particular and also profitability, On the plus side, says Henry, was up from only 24 per cent a made in transforming our business that, “while advisory services have which we believe really challenges transactions are doing well. year earlier.” in recent years, particularly in tech- been the growth engine in our pro- the long-term sustainability from “Canada is bullish in its pursuit of According to Deloitte CEO nology and through acquisitions fession, fee pressures for core an industry perspective.” Not only acquisitions, especially as com- Frank Vettese, growth was also and catalyst hires, which provide audit, accounting and tax compli- that, he adds, the firms are also panies in Alberta’s distressed oil brisk in areas such as technology new skills and services to meet ance services continue.” facing increased competition for patch address balance sheet pres- consulting, business risk, data ana- changing market demands.” Phil Noble, the outgoing CEO talent “as university graduates have sure. Our latest Capital Confidence Trent Henry, CEO of Ernst & of Grant Thornton, thinks that “the new and significantly expanded Barometer confirms this — in the See Business on page 20 BDO leads Top Seven growth Editor’s note: BDO Canada saw the “Our focus for the year was bolstering 51-103, Continuous Disclosure and Gov- largest revenue increase among the Top our existing footprint for our core business ernance Obligations for Venture Issuers, Seven firms in Canada. and looking to advisory firms as opportun- which came into effect June 30, ities to expand our service offering,” said 2015. “With our help, our venture issuer ew BDO CEO Pat Kramer Kramer. “This was accomplished by com- clients are considering whether to reduce explains that 2015 was another pleting mergers in Montreal, Kitchener- their disclosure burden and implement Nyear of steady growth. “Our Waterloo, London, the Greater Toronto those amendments or to continue to pro- growth was largely a result of expanding Area, and strengthening our IT advisory vide their current level of disclosures.” our advisory services, merger and acquisi- and forensic accounting services. Overall, BDO won the 2015 Network of the tion activity, along with modest growth in we added more than 250 partners and staff Year award at the London-based Inter- our core assurance and taxation services.” that have deepened our industry experi- national Accounting Bulletin awards. This BDO achieved a 9.3 per cent increase over ence and expanded our service offerings.” award, notes Kramer, “is a great accom- the prior year, giving it — by a small One important initiative from the Can- plishment, recognizing our active and margin — the biggest growth among the adian Securities Administrators also aggressive growth strategy in key markets, Top Seven firms in Canada. helped drive growth, National Instrument while maintaining a high focus on quality.” Rank by Revenue Revenue Partners/ Professional Revenue per Number Revenue splitting Revenue 2015 change Principals Staff professional of offi ces A&A/MAS/ 2015 2014 Association/Year End/ Head Offi ce (‘000) (%) (+/-) (+/-) staff tax/other 11 Deloitte LLP / May 30, 2015 / Toronto 2,088,000 8.8 886 (+18) 5,626 (+189) 371,134 56 (+1) N/A 22 KPMG LLP / Sept. 30, 2015 / Toronto 1,324,162 4.0 669 (-5) 3,902 (+109) 339,355 37 N/A 33 PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP / June 30, 2015 / Toronto 1,290,000 5.0 533 (+13) 4,381 (+182) 294,453 27 N/A 4 4 Ernst & Young LLP / July 3, 2015 / Toronto 1,111,000 9.0 356 (+2) 3,283 (+216) 338,410 16 (-1) N/A 5 5 Grant Thornton Canada 1 / December 31, 2015 / Toronto 597,000 3.3 378 (-17) 2,702 (-258) 220,947 143 (+8) N/A 5 6 MNP LLP / December 31, 2015 / Calgary 597,000 9.1 412 (+34) 1,256 (+162) 475,318 60 (+1) N/A 7 7 BDO Canada LLP / December 31, 2015 / Toronto 534,000 9.2 442 (+29) 2,382 (+174) 224,181 118 (+6) N/A 88 Collins Barrow / Dec. 31, 2015 / Toronto 213,500 6.2 238 (+11) 858 (+34) 248,834 50 (+3) N/A 9 9 Richter / December 31, 2015 / Montreal 101,900 4.6 61 (-2) 417 (+11) 244,365 3N/A 10 10 Mallette / August 31, 2015 / Québec 71,781 6.9 75 (+3) 650 (+233) 110,432 28 (+3) 60/15/20/5 1 Includes Grant Thornton LLP and Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton (Montreal) 14 FOCUS The Bottom Line April 2016 Deloitte KPMG PwC Canada eloitte continues to hold top spot in the Top 30 rankings PMG produced very strong bottom line numbers wC has seen tremendous progress on all of its priorities with 2015 top line growth of close to nine per cent, last year, holding its spot at second place in the Top in fiscal 2015. CEO Bill McFarland says revenues grew Dalong with solid profitability, says CEO Frank Vettese. K30 rankings. “Contributing to our success,” says Pby more than five per cent, “with growth across all parts “We believe we’ve captured market share, particularly in our CEO Bill Thomas, “was a particularly strong performance of our business. The challenging economic environment and advisory services, where we saw double-digit growth” in tech- from our tax practice, as well as growth in a number of our changing social agenda has provided us with great opportun- nology, business risk, data analytics, cybersecurity and human strategic growth priority areas, reflecting investments we ities to advise clients.” capital consulting. made over the past few years.” PwC’s success is built on the significant investments made Over 2015, says Vettese, “we’ve focused on adding ser- KPMG’s audit practice faced continuing fee pressure and in transforming its business in recent years, he adds, “particu- vices that enrich our ability to address more complex client slower capital market activity, which “had an impact on our larly in technology and through acquisitions and catalyst hires, problems and, at the same time, started to expand the reach public company audit business, but that was offset by con- which provide new skills and services to meet changing of our Canadian expertise into other geographic markets, tinuing strength and increasing market share in the private market demands. We also had a number of brand-defining particularly serving our clients in the Americas.” company enterprise practice.” wins in assurance — including the audits of RBC and Sobeys One example is Deloitte’s acquisition of Asset Perform- In response to evolving client needs, notes Thomas, KPMG — which will favourably impact our revenues next year.” ance Group, which “brings outstanding expertise in the area also continued to build service offerings, including further A cornerstone of PwC’s global strategy is to become the of asset efficiency in capital-intensive industries.” investments in cybersecurity and forensic technology, and sub- leading technology-enabled professional services firm, he Also popular, Deloitte’s Cyber Intelligence Centre offered stantial investments in financial services advisory and data ana- points out. “These tools allow us to work more collaboratively, a 24/7 managed security services solutions that can quickly lytics, which “have put us in a position to deliver on a number which is creating a better experience for our clients and people. monitor, detect and respond to cyber threats rapidly and deci- of very large transformation projects.” The firm continues to “We are also reimagining how we deliver our services, sively so clients can manage risks and stay ahead of attackers. invest in enhancing the quality of audits.