EY accomplice payouts in UK fall to £723,000 | USAEMALL.com

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Payouts for EY’s UK partners fell by 5 per cent this year to £723,000 on average, as the Big Four firm was hit by a sharp slowdown in sales growth and its partnership increased in size.

The fall in partner pay for the most recent financial year followed a rise in the number of equity partners who share in the firm’s profits, EY said on Friday. Its average equity partner headcount stood at 903 in the year to the end of June, up from 866 in 2023.

Revenue growth at the firm slowed to just 3 per cent during the year, a sharp decline on the 16 per cent growth recorded in the previous 12 months. Total profits fell 1 per cent to £653mn, on fee income of £3.7bn.

The slowdown was driven by a contraction in two of EY’s main business units — consulting and strategy and transactions — where sales fell 4 per cent and 13 per cent respectively, amid a more difficult economic environment.

“In a year of economic and geopolitical uncertainty, we’ve delivered a strong performance and continued to invest in the business [and] our people,” said Hywel Ball, EY’s outgoing UK managing partner.

“With depressed UK and global deal activity and weak levels of corporate confidence during [the year], we have responded to the market to ensure we have the right platform for continued long-term growth and profitability,” he added.

Assurance, which includes EY’s audit business, was the firm’s best-performing service line during the year, with revenues climbing by a tenth. Sales at its tax business also increased 4 per cent.

EY’s UK performance for its latest financial year was broadly in line with rivals PwC and Deloitte, which also reported a slowdown in sales growth driven by weaker demand for consulting and deals advisory services.

EY’s partners are, so far, the third-best paid of the Big Four firms in the UK this year, with their Deloitte counterparts taking home on average £1.01mn for the firm’s most recent financial year, and PwC’s top rank earning £862,000.

KPMG, which is yet to report results for its most recent financial year, handed its equity partners an average of £746,000 in the 12 months to September 2023.

Ball, who has led the UK firm since 2020, was a strong proponent of EY’s ultimately failed attempt to split its accounting and consulting arms globally. He is set to step down, and will be replaced by financial services boss Anna Anthony in January.

Anthony said: “We’ve had a solid start to the first quarter of our new financial year, with an improving deals market benefiting our strategy and transactions business in particular. We expect to see this momentum continue to build as we go through the year.”