Munich, 15 October 2021 - The WTS Group is continuing on its successful course: with EUR 183.3 million in revenue in the past 2020/21 financial year and organic growth of around 9 per cent, the consulting firm for tax advice and financial advisory has achieved a new record growth. All business areas grew in the process.
"Thanks to a number of important structural changes, particularly in digital services and the expansion of central consulting fields, we have managed to continue our success story in a very exceptional overall economic situation," Fritz Esterer, CEO of WTS, is pleased to report.
The revenue driver in the past business year was once again the consulting business with digital services, which was bundled under the business unit WTS Digital. The digital unit comprises more than 150 colleagues and provides a complete package for the digitalisation of tax processes. This enables the WTS Group to support companies in the holistic development of a digital tax department.
Other core consulting fields such as income tax consulting, VAT, transfer pricing, tax internal control systems (Tax CMS), business partnering or M&A and Tax Advisory have also developed extremely positively. "Ultimately, we were very successful across all service lines. This is also reflected at partner level. At the end of the 2020/21 financial year alone, 14 new partners were elected to the partnership. This is a new record," comments Fritz Esterer.
The WTS Group also recorded significant double-digit growth in the Financial Advisory Services consulting area. Above all, transaction consulting and services related to IFRS and finance optimisation were very successful. Important growth impulses were also set with the consulting of large SMEs and the new Digital Architects team, which supports finance functions in the digital transformation by means of cloud-based technologies and innovative tools for data value creation.
The WTS Group is well equipped for the future. The new Financial Market Integrity Strengthening Act (FISG) in particular presents significant opportunities for the consulting firm. "With FISG and the resulting tighter separation of auditing and consulting, I expect a considerable redistribution in the market. Many companies will be forced to reassign advisory assignments due to the legal requirements and the additional rotation obligation. Independent consultants who deliberately forego audits will benefit most from this," explains Fritz Esterer.
Another growth area results from the megatrend ESG. "Whether investors, business partners, the public sector or other stakeholders, they all demand increasingly strong transparency from companies on sustainability issues. In addition, I assume that sustainability-related disclosure requirements will be significantly expanded in the coming years," says Fritz Esterer.
"In the past financial year, we started to build up an ESG unit in the WTS Group and are already supporting our clients with sustainability reporting and the implementation of the EU taxonomy. We also have an excellently positioned Green Tax practice. We will continue to push this area significantly in the future."
