The accounting and consulting firm BDO Luxembourg has reported €92.1m in revenue for the financial year ending 30 September 2024, marking its second consecutive year of double-digit growth.

Total turnover rose 16.9% year-on-year and has grown by 52.7% since 2020.

Its rivals recorded lower year-on-year gains in percentage terms for the 2023/2024 financial year, albeit from much larger bases. , , total revenue at and .

The growth has been both organic and due to gains in marketshare, , CEO of BDO Luxembourg, said in an interview ahead of the firm announcing its financial results on Monday.

In the financial year ending 30 September 2024, business services and outsourcing represented nearly half (49.2%) of BDO’s overall turnover in Luxembourg. Audit and related services made up 26.9% of the firm’s total.

Lam said that tax services revenue “grew by around 24%” year-on-year, advisory services “grew by over 33%”, audit and assurance was up 22.8% and its business services and outsourcing segment “grew at around 9%”.

Total headcount increased by 4.9% year-on-year and has risen by 29.6% since 2020.

When Lam meets business leaders in Luxembourg, often “they’re very surprised by our size, that we are nearly 700 people.” It’s not only headcount, Lam stated. “When I sort through and explain all our various services, a lot don’t realise that we have such a breadth and such a wide scope of services.” BDO needs to be “more visible, be more out there” and remain “close to our clients.”

Big five

BDO considers itself a “big five” firm competing “alongside the big four” consulting firms. Globally the group operates in “nearly 170” jurisdictions and posted €14bn in revenues, Lam pointed out.

Lam said he recently met with a global bank which awarded its Luxembourg audit business to BDO. During the meeting, by Lam’s telling, the bank’s executives shared “why they chose us, saying ‘traditionally we’ve used the big four and this time wanted to enlarge [the search] a bit and consider other players. You have global reach, you have a good reputation, so you were considered.’ And we won it. Our approach and professionalism really appealed to them.”

“What also contributes to our growth is that we can be a solution in cases where our fellow professional firms--notably the big four--face conflicts of interest situations.”

Marrakesh hub

The firm has opened a hub in Marrakesh, in Morocco, to recruit “profiles that we could not find in Luxembourg” despite trying to recruit locally and in neighbouring countries. “We were lucky enough to have close links with the university there and it was quite natural for us to open a branch there,” Lam said.

The hub is dedicated to BDO Luxembourg and has “around 20” employees. For the time being, the firm is focusing on this location and does not have any immediate plans to open additional hubs.

“To be honest, it’s quite a job to manage the hub at a distance,” Lam said. To develop links, the firm rotates a senior management member from Luxembourg to the hub every two weeks.

Updated 24 February at 5pm, to correct the year-on-year growth rate in the firm’s tax segment