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Business consulting services
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We can help you identify, understand and manage potential risks to safeguard your business and comply with regulatory requirements.
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The relationship between a company and its auditor has changed. Organisations must understand and manage risk and seek an appropriate balance between risk and opportunities.
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Cybersecurity
As organisations become increasingly dependent on digital technology, the opportunities for cyber criminals continue to grow.
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Mergers and acquisitions
Globalisation and company growth ambitions are driving an increase in M&A activity worldwide. We work with entrepreneurial businesses in the mid-market to help them assess the true commercial potential of their planned acquisition and understand how the purchase might serve their longer- term strategic goals.
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Recovery and reorganisation
Workable solutions to maximise your value and deliver sustainable recovery
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Transactional advisory services
We can support you throughout the transaction process – helping achieve the best possible outcome at the point of the transaction and in the longer term.
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Valuations
We provide a wide range of services to recovery and reorganisation professionals, companies and their stakeholders.
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IFRS
The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are a set of global accounting standards developed by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) for the preparation of public company financial statements. At Grant Thornton, our IFRS advisers can help you navigate the complexity of financial reporting from IFRS 1 to IFRS 17 and IAS 1 to IAS 41.
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Audit quality monitoring
Having a robust process of quality control is one of the most effective ways to guarantee we deliver high-quality services to our clients.
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Global audit technology
We apply our global audit methodology through an integrated set of software tools known as the Voyager suite.
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Corporate and business tax
Our trusted teams can prepare corporate tax files and ruling requests, support you with deferrals, accounting procedures and legitimate tax benefits.
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Our teams have in-depth knowledge of the relationship between domestic and international tax laws.
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Global mobility services
Through our global organisation of member firms, we support both companies and individuals, providing insightful solutions to minimise the tax burden for both parties.
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Indirect international tax
Using our finely tuned local knowledge, teams from our global organisation of member firms help you understand and comply with often complex and time-consuming regulations.
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Dynamic businesses must continually innovate to maintain competitiveness, evolve and grow. Valuable tax reliefs are available to support innovative activities, irrespective of your tax profile.
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Private client services
Our solutions include dealing with emigration and tax mitigation on the income and capital growth of overseas assets.
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Transfer pricing
The laws surrounding transfer pricing are becoming ever more complex, as tax affairs of multinational companies are facing scrutiny from media, regulators and the public
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Tax policy
Tax policies are constantly evolving and there are a number of complex changes on the horizon that could significantly affect your business.
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Outsourcing Changes to the Outsourcing legislation, specifically when offshoringSignificant changes to the dynamic of the financial services sector in recent years have shifted the paradigms in how we work. The increased digitisation of the workforce, changes in business models, globalisation, and remote working capabilities have led to a new approach to the delivery of services.
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Asset management Inflation and tax planningThe recent onset of rapid inflation is an unwelcome development that is having a widespread impact on US businesses and tax planning.
Clare Hartnell on how rising house prices can support economic growth
Business optimism in markets such as China, the UK and the US has risen markedly over recent months according to the Grant Thornton International Business Report (IBR). And the most interesting aspect for me is the contribution of the real estate and construction sector to the brightening economic outlook.
In China, house prices rose in 69 of 70 major cities in September, including record rises in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, and there is even hope that the third plenum of the Communist Party’s Central Committee will deliver land reform, allowing migrants in cities to buy property and those in rural areas to mortgage their homes.
Here in the UK we have seen a raft of positive economic data in recent weeks: construction output was up 1.7% in Q3 from Q2, a 4.1% increase year-on-year; mortgage approvals have reached a five and a half year high; and forecasters are predicting that the house price recovery will accelerate as schemes such as Help to Buy ramp up.
In the US, housing starts are up 19% year-on-year; a recent survey suggested that house prices climbed in nine out of ten cities in the 12 months to October, rising by 14% on average; and delinquency rates on packaged commercial mortgages have fallen.
Real estate and construction business leaders in all three economies are understandably bullish about future growth. According to the Q3 IBR results, more than half of sector executives in North America expect revenues (54%) and profits (56%) to rise over the next 12 months. The results are similarly positive in the UK (51% revenues and 45% profits) and in China (incl. Hong Kong; 50% and 42% respectively).
However, things are tougher for the sector in the eurozone, and particularly in southern Europe. Two in five eurozone business leaders in the sector are worried about a lack of demand, rising to 71% in southern Europe; well above the North America result (17%). Consequently just 25% of eurozone businesses expect to see profits climb over the next 12 months, falling to 22% in southern Europe[2].
And, whilst property prices in the China, the UK and the US are rising, Spain has seen a 35% drop-off since 2007. House prices in Spain were 12% lower in the first half of 2013 compared with the first half of 2012 and, with 1 million unsold properties in Spain and the banks still owning vast swathes of undeveloped land, they could yet fall as far as 50% below peak.
Rising house prices support wider economic growth by boosting the ‘wealth effect’, whereby homeowner confidence, borrowing and spending rises because homes are perceived to be worth more. Unfortunately for Spain, the sector is still some way off providing the boost to growth seen elsewhere around the world.