Will the Drivers Jonas/Deloitte tie-up be good for clients? Click here to record your answer anonymously
Deloitte is a force to be reckoned with in professional services, writes Estates Gazette editor Damian Wild.
More than any other member of what is known as the Big Four, it wears its ambition on its sleeve and is prepared to back it up with decisive action.
UK chief executive John Connolly – the highest paid accountant in the country (an eye-popping £5.2m last year) – is a dealmaker through and through. There is perhaps no other accountant who would have phoned a UK agent and suggested a merger.
When the fifth member of what was then the Big Five, Andersen, crumbled in the 1990s – under reputational damage inflicted by its audits of Enron and WorldCom – it was Connolly who pounced. As rivals dithered, he pulled off a deal to acquire the UK business, a move widely acknowledged as both brave and shrewd.
While Deloitte’s reach into territories and sectors that they barely touch will have appealed to the Drivers Jonas partners, its profitability will have been a major draw, too. Deloitte’s profits per partner were just £30,000 shy of a cool £1m each in 2008.
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Damian Wild is editor of Estates Gazette and previously edited Accountancy Age
