Crowe Horwath Australasia, formerly known as WHK Group, reported a 2% drop in fee income to A$405.9m in the year to 30 June 2013.
Crowe Horwath Australasia saw its financial services revenue increase by 3% to A$94.6m, while its business services revenue fell by 3% to A$311.3m.
While the firm’s revenues were only down slightly net profits saw a 31% to A$7m.
Crowe Horwath Australasia managing director John Lombard said in a statement on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX): "The overall decline in business services revenue is attributable to a decrease in the more profitable business advisory work with clients restricting their discretionary expenditure with respect to advisory services during the year."
Lombard attributed Crowe Horwath Australasia’s profits drop to tough business conditions.
"Crowe Horwath Australasia has found business confidence to be low in its key client demographic, being the SME sector, which has impacted on the ability or willingness for clients to commit to discretionary expenditure," he said.
Additionally in 2013, Crowe Horwath Australasia completed transformation projects initiated in the past two years.
"These included a restructured and aligned leadership team, a new remuneration model for principals, business efficiency project, group shared services environment and a successful move to one brand during July 2013," Lombard said.
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By GlobalDataThe firm which has been listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) since 1987, is not the only public company to have experienced a decrease in profits, as on average Australian listed company have seen their profits fall by 4.4% this year.
For 2014, Crowe Horwath Australasia expects business confidence to remain low and therefore Lombard expects no significant changes as said the firm will focus on "organic revenue growth, cost control, tightly managing cash flow from operations and margin improvement across both business services and financial services operations",
Among the objectives for the coming financial year, Lombard said that Crowe Horwath Australasia would focus on leveraging the size of its network in order to generate growth opportunities. The firm also said it is planning to expand its use of cloud based technologies in FY14 to improve service efficiencies.
In 2012 Crowe Horwath Australasia was ranked as the fifth largest network in Australasia by the International Accounting Bulletin.
Related links:
Crowe Horwath Australasia results
WHK adopts Crowe Horwath brand
