Advisory firm Begbies Traynor grows revenue by 15% to £60 million

Begbies Traynor is enjoying a bull run at present, having grown both revenues and profit exponentially in the past two years. The firm’s latest results seem to show the decision to diversify its offering has paid dividends, reversing its faltering performance in 2016 and 2017.

2018 was a difficult year for companies across the business spectrum, proving to be the latest chapter in a sustained decline across the UK’s markets. The last three years have seen a 20% rise in insolvencies, with collapses in the retail and casual dining sectors in particular defining the poor epoch for the UK high-street. With the state of play showing no sign of improvement, and an impending culmination of Brexit threatening to shunt the UK’s economy into a recession, this has proven to be the case in 2019 as well.

Amid this chaos, it would be tempting to take it as a given that one vulture-esque sector of the UK would be thriving. However, despite a recent report from Begbies Traynor – the UK’s largest professional services consultancy specialising in the areas of corporate recovery and insolvency – finding that the number of businesses in significant distress across the UK now stands at 481,000, thanks to a particularly concerning leap of 15,000 during the final quarter of 2018, the insolvency market has been relatively static.

At Begbies Traynor itself, this had impacted on the firm’s profit line in recent times, and as a result the firm has been chasing a rapid agenda of diversification. To that end, the firm recently continued the expansion of its property services arm, acquiring Manchester-based consultancy Croft Transport Planning & Design. Now, with the reporting of its most recent financial results, Begbies Traynor has shown this strategy has clearly had a massive impact on its performance. 

Revenues have boomed from £52.4 million to £60.1 million in the past year, an increase of 15% (9% of which was organic), while profit before tax has spiked by 52% to £3.5 million. This sealed the reversal of a troubling trend at the firm in recent years, which saw profits fall firmly below £1 million by 2017. All areas of the group performed well, with its bread-and-butter of business recovery seeing growth from organic investment and acquisitions, while advisory work benefitted from the acquisition of Springboard Corporate Finance a year before; and both were supplemented by the continued to development of the firm’s property wing.

Turnaround specialists

Commenting on the results, Ric Traynor, Executive Chairman of Begbies Traynor, said, “We have reported another year of strong financial performance, ahead of our original expectations, in which we have grown the business organically, completed four acquisitions and increased the dividend whilst reducing net debt. All areas of the group performed well, reflecting the benefits of recent organic investment, an increase in market activity and the good performance of recent acquisitions.”

The future is thought to be filled with promise for the consultancy, too. While Begbies Traynor expects to benefit more and more from the up-tick in insolvencies, it now has an enhanced breadth of service lines with multiple sources of growth potential. It expects to feel the benefit of its most recent additions in the period to follow, having entered the new financial year with positive momentum.

Traynor added, “Looking ahead, we are better positioned than ever with multiple sources of potential growth supported by a strong financial platform. There is currently uncertainty in the UK economy as a result of the Brexit process, but with a combination of our counter-cyclical activities together with our breadth of services, we are well placed to continue our track record of growth in the new financial year and beyond.”