BDO merges in East Coast and aims for nationwide integration
BDO has merged four of its east coast offices in Australia to form an integrated operation, enabling the mid-tier accounting and consulting firm to take a significant step towards a single national business.
“Our Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, including Sunshine Coast, offices will come together as a single entity before the end of the year,” said Tony Schiffmann, who is managing partner of the firm’s Brisbane office and lead of the integration programme. The tie up will according to him enhance BDO’s “ability to invest, attract new talent, grow in scale and expertise, and be more agile moving forward.”
Grant Saxon, managing partner of BDO’s Sydney office, said the merger would help the firms better capitalise on synergies in offerings. “We are experiencing strong demand for BDO’s offering in the local market, and by combining resources down the east coast, our ability to meet market needs and invest in specialist services and sectors will be enhanced.”
The merger of the firm’s three largest offices by revenue in Australia creates a unit generating combined revenue of $212 million, led by a 126-strong partner team. Across the country, BDO has around 1,500 employees working from offices Adelaide, Brisbane, the Sunshine Coast, Cairns, Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.
The east coast merger marks the first phase of a broader integration plan, said Schiffmann. “Moving towards a single national structure, while at the same time retaining the entrepreneurial freedom we feel is essential at the local level, is a natural step in our firm’s evolution,” he explained. “Our decision to undertake a phased approach to integration was made to ensure the impact on business as usual has been minimised.”
The move comes five months after BDO’s Brisbane office acquired Consolid8, a boutique cloud accounting and business advisory firm based in Mount Gravatt. The bolt-on bolstered BDO’s accounting and business advisory offering in Queensland, in areas such as cloud accounting technology, financial education for SME’s, e-commerce and digital consulting.
Globally, BDO has more than 80,000 people in 100+ countries, making it the fifth largest accounting and consulting network behind the Big Four.
