Ebner Stolz grows business

• tur­no­ver 2013: 150.4 mil­lion euros (+9.2 per­cent)
• audit-rela­ted con­sul­ting furt­her expan­ded
• inc­rea­sing import­ance of net­work Nexia Inter­na­tio­nal

 
Stutt­gart, 2.4.2014: The audi­ting and con­sul­ting firm Ebner Stolz once again grew and inc­rea­sed its annual tur­no­ver to 150.4 mil­lion euros. This is an inc­rease in tur­no­ver of more than 9 per­cent com­pa­red to the year before. In 2012, the tur­no­ver was 137.6 mil­lion euros. „Our stra­tegy to focus con­se­qu­ently on mid-size com­pa­nies is quite suc­cess­ful“, Dr. Wolf­gang Russ, part­ner at Ebner Stolz, sums up. „All four busi­ness divi­si­ons - audi­ting, tax advice, legal advice and cor­po­rate con­sul­ting - deve­lo­ped posi­ti­vely. We grow toge­ther with our cli­ents and have rea­ched our ambi­tious tur­no­ver aim for 2013.“

Most important deve­lop­ments of the busi­ness year

The demand and thus the clo­su­res with mid-size com­pa­nies inc­rea­sed noti­ceable in 2013. „Our awa­re­ness all over Ger­many inc­rea­sed con­s­i­de­r­a­bly and we espe­cially pro­fi­ted from our strong brand in the wes­tern part of Ger­many “, Dr. Wolf­gang Russ says. „Ebner Stolz is thus well-posi­tio­ned on the mar­ket.”

Ebner Stolz’ growth ori­gi­na­ted mostly from lis­ted mid-size com­pa­nies. The orga­niza­tion now audits 38 lis­ted com­pa­nies and is com­pa­red to its com­pe­ti­tors on the 6th rank in Ger­many. SHW, Bas­tei Luebbe, Cybits, Indus Hol­ding and First Sen­sor are five man­da­tes which were gai­ned in the stock mar­ket seg­ment of the regu­la­ted mar­ket in 2013.

The ban­king sec­tor made pro­gress as well. The NF bank in Bre­men is the newest cli­ent in this branch. Furt­her strong rates of growth were achie­ved in the health and non-pro­fit com­pa­nies sec­tor.

In addi­tion, also the audit-rela­ted ser­vices grew. Important man­da­tes were valua­tion reports for the squeeze out of the Dou­glas Hol­ding AG, the for­mer Demag Cra­nes AG (now Terex MHPS AG) as well as the Esse­ner Els­ter Group SE, a for­mer com­pany part of the Ruhr­gas AG. Audi­tors of the com­pany wor­ked addi­tio­nally as experts for the pro­ce­du­res of the insol­vent Hess AG and Qimonda AG.

Key figu­res at a glance

Growth in all busi­ness sec­tors

31 per­cent share of tur­no­ver comes from the sec­tor of audi­ting. Espe­cially the areas of IFRS, the audit-rela­ted ser­vices, the tran­sac­tion con­sul­tancy - in parti­cu­lar due dili­gence and eva­lua­tion of the com­pany - as well as IT revi­sion grew.

With 42 per­cent, tax advice forms the big­gest part of the tur­no­ver. “The cross-bor­der con­sul­ting busi­ness, e.g. in the area of trans­fer pri­ces, and the more than pro­por­tio­nal rising tax defense advice in this seg­ment as well as the con­sul­tancy con­cer­ning natio­nal and inter­na­tio­nal taxable ques­ti­ons deve­lo­ped very well,” Prof. Dr. Ursula Ley, audi­tor, tax advi­sor and part­ner at Ebner Stolz, exp­lains. “We pro­fit parti­cu­larly from the smooth and uncom­p­li­ca­ted col­la­bo­ra­tion in our strong part­ner net­work Nexia Inter­na­tio­nal.” Very popu­lar for mid-size com­pa­nies was also the ques­tion how to orga­nize suc­ces­sion, before the anti­ci­pa­ted reform of the inhe­ri­tance tax beco­mes app­lica­ble.

The cor­po­rate con­sul­tancy adds 20 per­cent to the total tur­no­ver. In the begin­ning of 2013, Ebner Stolz enlar­ged the inter­di­s­ci­p­li­nary com­pe­tence team restruc­tu­ring through the mer­ger with the Mana­ge­ment Team AG to over 60 experts. Besi­des the sup­port in restruc­tu­ring, pro­jects rela­ting to yield enhan­ce­ment and impro­ve­ment of cor­po­rate mana­ge­ment added to the growth in this sec­tor.

The law advice divi­sion also grew stron­gly in its core areas under cor­po­rate law con­sul­ting, suc­ces­sion con­sul­ting as well as tran­sac­tion con­sul­ting. The field of secu­ri­ties law was able to grow parti­cu­larly well due to the con­sul­ting of the stock mar­ket launch of the pub­lis­hing group Bas­tei Luebbe. 

Good Start in 2014

Ebner Stolz aims to inc­rease its tur­no­ver in the cur­rent busi­ness year to 160 mil­lion euros. „We expect a furt­her posi­tive busi­ness deve­lop­ment, parti­cu­larly in the sec­tor of mid-size com­pa­nies“, says Wolf­gang Russ. „The deve­lop­ment of the share of tur­no­ver in the four divi­si­ons will remain about the same.”

New pre­sence is aimed to streng­t­hen brand addi­tio­nally

In October 2013, the audi­ting and con­sul­ting firm rebran­ded its com­pany and is now cal­led „Ebner Stolz“. After the fusion to Ebner Stolz Mön­ning Bachem in the begin­ning of 2009, the name was now shor­te­ned to stress the con­ci­sion and dif­fe­ren­tia­tion of the brand. The pro­mise “al­ways there” exp­lains the under­stan­ding of con­sul­tancy at Ebner Stolz. “Each cli­ent has its own con­tact per­son who knows him well, is ini­tia­tive and also thinks beyond the imme­diate area of res­pon­si­bi­lity”, Russ empha­si­zes. “We under­stand the needs of emp­loy­ers because we are a com­pany based on part­nership and are ent­re­p­re­neurs as well.”

Curr­ently, Ebner Stolz pro­mo­tes its com­pany to be the ideal part­ner for mid-size com­pa­nies nati­on­wide with a cam­paign at air­ports and in busi­ness maga­zi­nes and posi­ti­ons its­elf with the slo­gan “We can mid-size com­pa­nies.”