ACCOUNTANCY FIRM HAINES WATTS RECORDS ANOTHER STRONG YEAR OF GROWTH

HAINES Watts has released its latest financial results, with the firm recording a second consecutive year of double-digit growth taking it to a £96m turnover group.

The firm has nine offices in the South West which make up £8.34m of the company turnover and these teams have seen 20% growth on last year. The South West teams are in Barnstaple, Bristol, Crediton, Exeter, Launceston, Okehampton, Portishead, Swindon, and Trowbridge. 

Following a strong 16% group revenue growth last year, the nationwide accountancy firm had predicted a slower growth rate in the second half of FY19 due to Brexit but has achieved a 13% leap in overall revenues from both organic growth and an active acquisition strategy.

£11m turnover was acquired during the financial year as Haines Watts took over new businesses in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol and Nottingham with recent acquisitions in the northeast expected to flow into next year’s accounts.

Swindon managing partner Mike Lloyd said: “With the addition of new businesses to our group, we are steadily expanding our offering which is leading to a rounder advisory service with existing clients and generating new fee income. We are now able to advise wider on complex tax matters and private client work; we are fully able to provide business owners with advisory support in today’s challenging climate.”

The firm remains firmly in acquisitive mode, already recording 6% in acquired fee growth in the current financial year. Haines Watts has over 60 offices across the UK and rolled out a regional model in late 2018 to foster greater collaboration across ten regions. 

Michael Davidson is the group’s managing partner. He said:

“We have spent 2019 looking at where every region is in their business cycle and have benchmarked best practice levels – effectively we’ve been getting our ducks in a row which will now leverage our organic growth opportunity. We intend to recruit further across all our service lines and functional support to facilitate regional growth further in 2019/20.”

Haines Watts has already strengthened its leadership team with 13 new partner appointments in April 2019.

“We know agile and flexible working is attractive to ‘future of work’, so our new offices in Birmingham have no fixed desks and soon we will bring our most recent London acquisitions into our Holborn office and take a similar approach. We are even looking at co-working space for clients in our future plans and are very keen to lead the way in being a modern business unafraid to adopt change,” Mr. Davidson added.

Haines Watts has recently been named GiGi ‘Member firm of the year’ and Accountancy Firm of the Year at the FD Excellence Awards.

Haines Watts is a Top 15 firm of chartered accountants and business advisors specialising in advising and supporting business owners. The brand supports over 35,000 companies and business owners across the UK, giving clients access to over 80 years of expertise and knowledge. Haines Watts was founded in 1930 and employs over 1000 UK based people.