Our Clients: Advisory
During a challenging period, as a result of the prevailing economic conditions in the domestic and international markets, Advisory was successful in meeting its budgeted revenues for FY11, achieving at the same time an increase in the work performed. |
The efficiency that was achieved was crucial in the overall Advisory effort to meet its budgeted fees for FY11, despite the margin pressure from the market and our effort to reduce our fees to support and assist our clients during these difficult times. |
Our dedicated team of professionals closely monitored the regulatory reform agenda, whose importance to our financial services clients cannot be stressed enough. The new regulatory architecture creates new challenges for our clients and until the “new normal” in regulatory terms is finally established, we are committed to stand next to our clients. Equipped with the right skills and technical knowledge, we assisted banks, investment firms, funds and insurance companies to face their every day challenges as well as taking strategic decisions.
Large and complex projects related to governance, risk, compliance and internal audit were delivered to our local and overseas clients. In parallel, operational effectiveness services, including major restructurings, added value to our clients in their effort to identify more efficient ways in carrying out their businesses. Despite the adverse market conditions, organisations are increasingly becoming aware of their sustainability responsibilities. In addressing these challenges we provided services in the areas of process improvement as well as sustainability management systems (occupational health and safety, environmental, and food safety) and corporate social responsibility. A number of complex and high visibility technical projects were delivered in both the public and private sectors as well as major banking institutions and large retail groups. Advisory also continued to offer Technology advisory services to help organizations transform their IT department into a more lean and agile function able to drive the organisation forward in this challenging environment.
Enhancing and developing management skills and capabilities was still a priority even though client budgets are downsized due to financial constraints. Organisations recognize that talent development remains a critical supporting factor to their ability to address future business needs. Our experience with financial services organisations is continually growing with the delivering of Management Development Programs. Also, our co-operation with the European Patent Office is continuing with on-going leadership development assignments.
This year the recruitment market continued to be in contraction. Nonetheless, we managed to sustain our leadership market position. We expect that as the economy recovers, our recruitment business will increase significantly as organizations start to invest more actively in new talent.
Our international assignment service offerings had a good year. International companies continue to relocate expatriate staff to Cyprus. We supported a number of clients with immigration compliance and relocation of their expatriates. Facing the difficulties derived from the economic crisis, organisations focus in measuring the performance of their staff and aligning their promotion and reward systems to the performance of their employees. This provided the opportunity for the design and implementation of Performance Management Systems for a number of organisations.
Organisations start to become more people focused and recognize the need to become “an employer of choice”. This led to the opportunity to support organisations in achieving the Investors In People (IIP) accreditation. In the context of the current economic conditions, both in the domestic and international markets, Financial Advisory achieved healthy growth in its revenues in FY11 compared to FY10. As there was a decrease in activity in transactions related services, emphasis was given to products that were closer to our clients’ expectations and needs, such as receiverships, restructurings, etc. Specifically, there has been a slow-down in the mergers and acquisitions activity in FY11 as businesses reconsider their strategy and corporate capital structures. Audit Support services remained relatively stable as expected due to their recurring nature, while Business Recovery Services experienced a significant increase due to the fact that a sizeable high visibility receivership engagement of a publicly listed entity was won and completed in FY11 in record time to the absolute satisfaction of all parties involved.
Our Capital Markets worked on a number of high profile transactions and retains a dominant position in the market of Russian IPOs to London through Cyprus. At the same time it continues to support our clients in their capital markets transactions both in other European markets as well as on the Cyprus Stock Exchange. As at the close of the year, Advisory was a group of 55 professionals and by far the biggest professional services consulting practice in Cyprus. The impact of the financial crisis on our Advisory work is showing positive signs of easing out, even though there are still a number of challenges ahead of us. The Advisory professionals are looking into the future with optimism though, equipped with the new integrated structure of “Assurance and Advisory”.
