International Accounting Bulletin | Page 9

World Survey 2014 International Accounting Bulletin tional client base. Stephens says she expects M&A in the coming year which will involve specialist firms to “deepen RSM’s capabilities in key areas”. Asked about the situation after the loss of Tenon she replies: “The UK is a challenging market and we are continuing discussions and hopefully we’ll be able to announce something soon.” Difficult year Another network to suffer consecutive challenging years was PKF International, which reported a 6% decrease to $2.5bn in the year to 30 June. PKF international lost several large member firms in the year. However due to the six-month notice period that firms have, and some deals happening just before the year-end or just after, PKF International included those revenues when reporting to the IAB. While some might have speculated that the loss of PKF UK to BDO UK at the end of 2012 and several other deals would mean the end of the network, chief executive John Sim says the network will “by mid 2014 be where we used to be”. “We have replaced several of the members we lost and some of them are still to leave and are currently operating as part of their six-month notice,” he says. Sim ad mits the net work has been somewhat “under attack” by networks like BDO and Grant Thornton International. However he believes PKF has successfull