BDO Ireland creates 100 consulting jobs with Eaton Square acquisition
Irish management consulting firm Eaton Square has been bought by professional services giant BDO Ireland for an undisclosed fee. As a consequence of the acquisition, the accounting and audit advisory specialist now becomes BDO Eaton Square.
The new entity has ambition, outlining plans to achieve 30% year-on-year growth over a three year timeframe. Annual revenue targets have been set at €20 million. To help achieve this, BDO Eaton Square has confirmed that it will create 100 new management consultant positions. This company of newly drafted consultants will join 45 existing employees scattered across offices in Cork, Dublin and Limerick.
They will be brought into the wider BDO Group, which is a network of independent member firms spread across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. BDO has been extremely active of late, particularly in the US, where it snapped up major healthcare advisory PBC. In the UK BDO has made a huge splash in Liverpool, launching its successful BDODrive program and announcing plans to expand its local office.
The co-founders of Eaton Square, a consultancy established in 2012 with a focus on strategy development and system integration solutions among other offerings, remain involved. Aidan McHugh and David O’Connor join the new BDO Eaton Square as Partners.
"Joining forces now with BDO will further our growth by widening and deepening the expertise we offer to clients," McHugh said. "Our ambition now, as BDO Eaton Square, is to become Ireland's leading team of management consultants and advisers."
BDO Ireland Managing Partner Michael Costello, echoed the sentiment. “Our motive in merging our existing consulting business with Eaton Square is to create a powerful new force in management consulting,” he said.
Buoyed by the creation of 100 jobs, Irish Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Heather Humphreys, commented publicly on the consulting industry merger.
"BDO and Eaton Square have built an extremely impressive track record supporting companies in Ireland and globally in realising significant growth," Humphreys said, adding that the deal was a “tangible indication” that the Republic’s professional services industry is in excellent health.
Her optimism is backed up by the latest Global Economic Outlook authored by PwC. In it the Big Four professional services firm projects that Ireland will be the fastest growing Eurozone economy from 2018-2024. Consulting industry forecasters will, however, be wary as the sector was left disappointed recently when explosive growth before 2015 failed to carry its momentum into 2016 and 2017. Growth fell to just 5% in 2016 after hitting 11% the previous year, with an over-reliance on domestic consulting business partly blamed for the slowdown.
