Average Deloitte UK Partner earns £1m
Date: 16-08-2008
Source: The Guardian & The Consultancy Group
Not everybody's bottom line has been hit by the credit crunch. John Connolly, global chairman of Deloitte, earned pounds £5.7m last year, £1m more than the year before, despite the onset of what has been described as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Connolly and his 680 fellow UK partners benefited from a rise in debt, restructuring and forensic accounting work, fees from which helped offset a downturn in companies seeking merger and acquisition advice.
A rise in corporate finance profits as well as in its three other divisions - audit, tax and consulting - gave the Deloitte a 16% rise in profits to £652m.
The average profit per partner rose to pounds £970,000 from £877,000, while partners on the executive committee shared a profit pool of £44m, which was £10m up on the year before.
Connolly had set a goal to breach £2bn in revenue in two years, a target achieved with £10m to spare in 2008, the firm revealed yesterday. Deloitte was reporting £1.6bn in revenues when the target was set. He is now setting a target of £3bn revenue within three years - when his term of office ends - as part of his strategy to make the firm the "market leader".
Deloitte is the first of the big four to report, and Connolly believes it is likely to be chasing PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the current No 1, but lead KPMG and E&Y.
Connolly said the audit arm was working on client companies' year-end results earlier than usual because of problems that might emerge in the credit crunch. Auditors can get blamed when firms run into difficulty and Deloitte wants to avoid accusations of missing warning signs in this downturn.
He is less pessimistic than some: while he expects 2008 to be a difficult year, he forecasts a "pick-up" in the UK economy in the later part of 2009 or early 2010.
The tax arm has traditionally won business from private equity firms although the downturn in buyouts has led to a drop in fees from this area, but it has won new business from clients in emerging markets who are setting up in the UK.
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