Press release

14 Oct 2019 Luxembourg, LU

EY Luxembourg: Strong growth of turnover by 8.3% to €236 million for the financial year ended 30 June 2019

Luxembourg, 14 October 2019. EY announced today a growth of 8.3% in its turnover generated in Luxembourg with revenues up in all service lines.

Financials

EY announced today a growth of 8.3% in its turnover generated in Luxembourg with revenues up in all service lines.

Total net revenues for the financial year ending 30 June 2019 amounted to € 236 million [1]  (FY19).

“We are very pleased to achieve again a strong revenue growth [2] of 8.3% this year, with sales increasing in all our practice areas. In the past three years we grew our revenues by 33% and now count over 1,500 EY professionals in Luxembourg. Key to our success are our client-centric approach, our use of new technologies and our unique combination of a strong Luxembourg partnership deeply anchored in the local market and our leverage on the skills and resources of our global firm all around the world. It is the talented and committed pool of professionals from 70 countries speaking 64 languages that bring the breadth and depth of these EY Luxembourg skills and solutions to our clients every day”, says Alain Kinsch, Country Managing Partner at EY Luxembourg.

The EY Luxembourg audit practice continued to win numerous new audit mandates as well as transform its service delivery model through digital and innovation and achieved a strong 8.8% turnover growth continuing a journey of strong, uninterrupted growth for more than 10 years now, further strengthening its position as the second largest audit practice in Luxembourg.

“With connected data-driven audit, our firm is helping to provide enhanced insights, depth and responsiveness to audit work. In addition to audit analytics powering the analysis of a large amount of financial data, new innovations include Document Intelligence, which uses AI and natural language processing to analyze thousands of documents reviewed during an audit engagement; we also see more demand for the EY Blockchain Analyzer which performs enhanced analytics on an organization’s entire transaction data from multiple blockchain ledgers”, adds Alain Kinsch.

A broader offering of cutting-edge managed reporting services to better meet the market’s growing demand has largely contributed to double digit 10.9% growth of the EY Luxembourg advisory practice this year. This growth can also be attributed to assisting EY’s clients on a continuous basis with the implementation of their regulatory agenda while significant technology-driven client demand continued particularly in blockchain, AI, cybersecurity, data analytics, IT risk management and intelligent automation confirming EY Luxembourg’s leading role as a center of expertise in specific technology services. The advisory practice has provided its clients with tailor-made solutions to help them implement the required changes in the context of Brexit.

The Luxembourg Tax practice delivered a robust growth of 6.5% of its turnover. Its tax advisors supported clients to navigate through the regulatory changes linked to OECD’s BEPS project as well as Luxembourg’s implementation of the ATAD and MDR directives. While digitalization, automation and robotics have become more prevalent, thus being a key pillar for EY Luxembourg, other main service drivers for the Luxembourg’s tax practice have included strong support for global compliance reporting, transactions, transfer pricing, (re)-structuring, family offices and mobile workers. The perspective of Brexit brought an increased need for people advisory services such as for example in view of recent tax treaties with neighboring countries. From a financial point of view, the local practice experienced the most significant increase in its Transfer Pricing department achieving a very strong growth compared to prior year followed by the Global Compliance and Reporting practice. EY Luxembourg has also seen a significant increase in the alternative investment fund space requiring high quality tax advice which they expect to continue and further accelerate over the months and years to come.

 

EY Global: key achievements

On a global level, EY announced record combined global revenues of US$36.4b for the financial year ended June 2019. Overall, financial year 2019 revenues grew by 8.0% in local currency (versus 7.4% in FY18).

All EY service lines delivered strong growth in FY19: in local currency Assurance grew 4.4%; Advisory 9.2%; Tax 8.6% and Strategy and Transactions (Strategy and Transactions) 15.5%.

Revenue also increased across all four of the EY geographic areas: the Americas 8.5%; Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA) 7.1%; Asia-Pacific 9.1% and Japan more than doubled its growth to 7.5%.

In FY19, headcount increased by 8.6% to more than 284,000 people globally.

 

A leading employer

“In September 2019, 320 professionals, coming from a multitude of cultural, economic and educational backgrounds, and from many of the best schools and universities, joined EY Luxembourg. These new recruits allowed us to record a substantial net growth of our professionals this year, bringing the number of our employees to over 1,500 people, consisting of 70 nationalities, thus ranking EY Luxembourg among the most multicultural firms in the Grand Duchy”, says Alain Kinsch.

EY continues to transform its approach to talent, providing meaningful career opportunities and enabling EY people to develop their unique story and career experience, not only people specialized in economics, finance, accounting or tax, but also various experts in data science, engineering, and digital.

“Luxembourg can be defined as one of the most attractive places to work in the world; featuring a dynamic and flexible ecosystem which has made it possible to create a unique connection among all local economic stakeholders, making innovation and new technologies one of its highest priorities, and providing a wealth of resources and opportunities for the business world. And, of course, there is a very good quality of life in Luxembourg”, highlights Alain Kinsch.

Both globally and locally EY continues to be recognised on prestigious lists for its outstanding people culture. For the fourth consecutive year, EY has been the world’s most attractive professional services employer for business students according to Universum’s 2019 “World’s Most Attractive Employer” annual ranking, and second overall this year.

Isabelle Nicks, People Partner at EY Luxembourg, explains: “this year, we have strengthened our recruitment activities and onboarded more professionals than ever before with various international backgrounds. In FY20, we will continue to expand the recruitment of international talents, especially advisory professionals to meet the needs of our growing practice with a variety of service offerings. In our growing assurance practice we have welcomed more than 230 young professionals in September 2019 with various professional backgrounds ranging from economics, finance and accounting to data analytics and digital who are being prepared to play their part in bringing confidence to capital markets with our new innovative tools and technologies. Finally, our transaction and tax groups are recruiting a steady number of professionals to support their ambitious growth objectives.”

 

POINT OF VIEWS

Digital and Managed Services

“EY Luxembourg has committed to embarking on an ambitious internal program of digital transformation, including a broad range of managed services to meet our clients’ requirements. We will therefore strive to continue this digital journey aiming at improving both our clients’ and our people’s experiences”, says Brice Lecoustey, Partner and Leader of the Digital and Managed Services initiative.

Various projects have been run in parallel to enhance the EY Luxembourg’s current service offering and add digital solutions that empower EY’s people in their day-to-day activities. With considerable investment in highly skilled people and latest technologies, including Data Analytics, leading Robotics Process Automation (RPA) with Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Machine Learning and modern cloud web applications EY’s clients can now visualize cutting-edge data on appealing user interfaces, while sharing information and monitoring the status of deliverables in an interactive manner.

EY Luxembourg has achieved a strong growth in providing Managed Services, especially in the Real Estate and Private Equity sectors. As the market leader in this field, EY Luxembourg aims to extend its scope for offering comprehensive services covering the entire life-cycle of UCITS and alternative investment funds, thus responding to a dynamic and increasing demand of the market. Even more, the customer experience has been totally transformed as EY clients can now easily convert their critical back-office operations into a valuable digital asset and make use of assistance on pressing issues with respect to Mandatory Disclosure Regime (MDR), first-class support on tax compliance, tax reclaims, profound knowledge on regulatory reporting, registration and market access, FATCA/CRS, SPV accounting and consolidation, to name a few.

“It has been a wonderful and enriching journey so far. Thanks to a strong collaboration across sectors and service lines, the implementation of latest technologies, regulatory expertise and a long experience in Managed Services, EY has become a strong valuable brand in the market with a set of first class digitally enabled Managed Services…with many more to come”, adds Michael Hornsby, Partner and Senior Advisor of the Digital and Managed Services initiative.

 

Entrepreneurship

For over 30 years, EY has been working with entrepreneurs, drawing on its experience and industry capabilities at a local and global levels and the EY 7 Drivers of Growth framework to support entrepreneurial, high-growth companies.

As all businesses are closely linked to the public sector when it comes to supporting them for innovation, international development or operating abroad, EY has adapted its organisation accordingly to provide them with tailor-made solutions to help them solve the most complex situations, not only impacting entrepreneurs or multinational companies from all commercial and industrial sectors, but also public institutions.

“This year we created a large “Commercial and Private Sector” team led by my partner Yves Even, a Luxembourgish audit partner supported by a large team composed of Luxembourgish-native professionals and colleagues who have lived in Luxembourg for many years and who are proficient in our local language”, says Alain Kinsch.

“In addition, we have been really pleased to provide multinationals operating in and from Luxembourg – for example to establish their global or regional headquarter in Luxembourg – with a dedicated EY team bringing the skills needed to serve commercial and industrial groups regardless of their activities and their operating areas“, says Yves Even.

Building on a strong local anchorage and an international experience in the SMEs and family-owned businesses sector, EY Luxembourg will be pleased to organize the 6th edition of the Entrepreneur of year in Luxembourg this year. This award is known as the most prestigious award for entrepreneurs all around the world, including in the Grand Duchy. It aims to reward entrepreneurs who have displayed entrepreneurial and innovative spirit with an ingenious strategy of development, an excellent financial performance and an effective management of their human resources and their organisation. All entrepreneurs established in Luxembourg for at least 3 years, with a minimum of € 2,5 million turnover and minimum 10% ownership in their company can participate.

“Even more this year, we will continue to establish long-term partnerships with commercial, industrial, scientific, logistics and healthcare companies to support them in their growth journey and their daily challenges for the years to come.  We will also continue to help public institutions adopt new digital technology, facilitate access to government services, optimise returns on public investments, keep people, information and strategic interests safe and audit national contributions to international projects”, adds Yves Even.

 

[1] Total net revenues represent the consolidated net revenues of EY Luxembourg.

[2] Turnover growth percentages are in line with the EY management reporting principles per service line.