BDO overtakes KPMG to take top spot in AIM auditor rankings
While BDO tops the list of total AIM clients, PwC triumphs when looking at the aggregate client market-cap
BDO takes the number one spot in the latest AIM auditor rankings as the firm with the most AIM clients. With one more client gain, BDO has muscled out KPMG with whom it was tied in April with 148 clients each. Consequently, KPMG has descended into the second place slot with a loss of two clients and a final result of 146.
According to Adviser Rankings, the next few spots on the total AIM client rankings are taken by Grant Thornton (120 clients) PwC (96 clients), Deloitte (65 clients), RSM (57 clients) and EY (48 clients).
While BDO tops the list of total AIM clients, PwC triumphs when looking at the aggregate client market-cap, with £25,578m. KPMG ranks second with £17,223m and BDO comes in third at £12,262m.
For FTSE AIM 100 clients, PwC tops both total number of clients and client market-cap, with 26 clients and £20,566m.
In the financial sector, KPMG secured the top spot with 36 clients (and second place client market-cap with £2,694m), followed by BDO with 24 clients. While EY came in sixth with only 10 clients, it topped the list of client market-cap, with £3,457m.
The report references how KPMG, Deloitte and Grant Thornton “recently came under the gaze of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) for the quality of some of their audits between February 2016 and January 2017”, but that the FRC stated audit quality across the wider market was unchanged compared with the previous year.
The FRC’s research in audit quality revealed that audits by Grant Thornton needed the most improvement, while PwC’s needed the least.
