Advisory and accounting firm BDO Australia last week admitted two additional partners in its newest office in Canberra, with the appointment of Hellen Thomas and Nabil Hossain.
The appointments come after Australia’s fifth-largest accounting firm reportedly poached a bunch of advisors from Deloitte, KPMG, and PKF and executed a raft of promotions to break the 300-partner milestone at the start of 2025.
BDO ranks fifth on the Australian Financial Review Top 100 Accounting Firms for 2024 list, posting more than $540 million in revenue last year – up 13.7%.
The list shows that while Australia’s Big Four consulting firms – Deloitte, EY, PwC, and KPMG – saw declines in 2024, mid-tier firms including BDO, Findex, RSM Australia, Grant Thornton, Pitcher Partners, and PKF grew, ranging from between 7% and 16.5%.
Only seven firms in the top 100, including the Big Four, recorded declines in annual revenue in 2023-24.
Deloitte was down 2.4% to record $2.78 billion in revenue, while EY’s revenue was $2.5 billion (-6.1%), PwC’s $2.35 billion (-25.9%), and KPMG Australia reported $2.23 billion in revenue (-3.6%).
As reported by Mining.com.au, PwC Australia yesterday admitted 29 new people to its partnership, bringing the total number of new partners to 34 for the 12-month period. The admissions came after 76 partners retired on July 1.
Commenting on last week’s partner appointments, BDO in Canberra’s lead partner Paul McDougall says the firm is bolstering its CFO advisory services for the public sector, as well as enhancing BDO’s capabilities in cyber security, governance, risk and assurance.
“We also have another significant defence partner and staff hires to bolster our Defence advisory capabilities. More details will follow soon on that appointment,” McDougall adds.
BDO is actively assessing further growth opportunities for advisory services and a review of the talent pipeline and hiring opportunities for Canberra.
BDO Chair David Fagan says the firm’s decision to expand into Canberra last year builds on an established public sector practice that currently equates to around 20% of revenue in Australia.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: Australian Financial Review & BDO
