Pitcher Partners and Moore Stephens merge Sydney offices

Agnes King

Updated May 29, 2015 – 2.13pm, first published at 1.56pm

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Mid market accountancy firms Pitcher Partners and Moore Stephens will merge their Sydney offices. The stitch-up will create a 28 partner, 240 staff firm, targeting billings of $48 million for the 2015-16 financial year.

It will be led by Moore Stephens Sydney current managing director, Rob Southwell.

The deal is a promising finale to some long-running headaches for both entities.

Don Rankin, Chairman of Pitcher Partners, which is merging its Sydney office with Moore Stephens's. Erin Jonasson

The once $136 million Moore Stephens national network of accounting firms has lost its $45 million flagship office in Melbourne to Chinese accounting network ShineWing, plus its western Sydney firm to Deloitte, over the past 18 months.

Meanwhile, Pitcher has been trying to improve the calibre of its Sydney office for at least five years.

The merger will take affect from October 31.

Moore Stephens will move into Pitcher's pricey MLC Centre offices in Martin Place. This lease has been weighting on the Pitcher partnership's profits - they will no doubt welcome the opportunity to share that burden, while plugging in some valuable corporate finance, tax and personal structuring expertise that the Moore's team have.

Moore Stephens Sydney is expected to inform staff and clients of the merger at a meeting scheduled for 4pm this afternoon.

Pitcher broke the news to partners at its national conference on the Gold Coast on Friday.

Moore Stephens expects a boost in inbound referral work from the merger, which will see it join the Baker Tilly international association of independent accounting firms.

Mr Southwell said the strength of collaboration between Baker Tilly's firms, particularly throughout Asia, was a big draw card, as is the exclusive nature of its membership.

Independence and control was the other big ticket item that steered Moore Stephens Sydney partners towards Pitcher over other suitors, such as BDO.

The big question now is where does this leave the Moore Stephens brand in Australia.

Moore Stephens picked up a small Perth firm from rival network UHY Haines Norton in April. But the loss of Sydney will pull Moore Stephens aggregate revenue down by roughly $27 million, leaving it with about $40 million. This is a massive slump from the 2011-12 financial year when it clocked approximately $136 million in combined income.