Audit Opinions May Soon Require Partners’ Names Signed in Blood

BDO International Global Coordination B.V. announced their global revenue results today of just a smidge over $5 billion. This represents a drop of 4.5% compared to the firm’s prior fiscal year end of September 30.

Newman:

“Our revenues have been affected by difficult market conditions – particularly in the economies of our largest member firms – and the significant reduction in transaction-based activity. Our results have also been affected by currency movements and, in particular, the weakening of many currencies against the US dollar and the euro. We are therefore extremely pleased that overall revenues in euro have grown and that there is only a modest reduction in overall fees when expressed in US dollars,” said Jeremy Newman, CEO of BDO International. “It is particularly pleasing that at a time when many other accounting networks are showing a decline in fee income that our underlying revenues, excluding the effect of currency movements, have increased by almost 5 percent.”

A little less spin from J. New than other Global Chiefs but still the standard optimism. We can’t wait for his blog post. Hopefully he gets more candid but we’re not holding our breath.
On more of a liability note, we were especially impressed with the firm’s “about” section:

BDO International is a world wide network of public accounting firms, called BDO Member Firms. Each BDO Member Firm is an independent legal entity in its own country. The network is coordinated by BDO Global Coordination B.V., incorporated in The Netherlands with its statutory seat in Eindhoven (trade register registration number 33205251) and with an office at Boulevard de la Woluwe 60, 1200 Brussels, Belgium, where the International Executive Office is located. BDO is the brand name for the BDO International network and for each of the BDO Member Firms. The combined fee income of all the BDO Member Firms was $5.03 billion in 2009. The global network has 1,138 offices in 110 countries and more than 46,000 people provide advisory services throughout the world.

Of the six sentences in this paragraph, four seem to be meant to remind everyone that the U.S. firm is on the hook for the $521 million owed to Banco Espirito. Any chance the non-U.S. firms are passing around a basket to help the good old US of A? Anybody? Maybe they’ll think about it? It’s the holidays for crissakes.
Anyhoo, we’re just waiting on KPMG for last major firm to give us the BIG NEWS about their 2009. Maybe it drops tomorrow during the bear manufacturing? Stay tuned.
BDO International Network Announces Revenue Results for 2009 [Press Release]
Earlier GC Coverage of Firm Revenue Results:
The Grant Thornton ‘Global Six’ Campaign Has Hit a Snag
PwC Global Revenue Was Down or Flat, Your Choice
E&Y Revenue Results: ‘Flat revenues certainly don’t tell the whole story’
Deloitte Is Super Proud of Their Presence on Linked In