PwC Australia delivers $2.6bn revenue for FY21, a record investment in people and expands transparency

PwC Australia has today announced its full year results to 30 June 2021, delivering total revenue of $2.6B ($2.4B excluding disbursements OR $2.2B excluding disbursements and revenue from overseas entities), reflecting underlying revenue growth of 4% for the Australian firm.  

In line with PwC’s ongoing commitment to transparency the firm has included details of business revenue growth, our overseas interests, relevant measures of profit and several measures of non-financial information that demonstrate its commitment to its people, communities and environment.

Revenue

* Revenue - Overseas represents PNG and Australia’s interest in PwC’s ASEANZ Consulting business which is controlled and is consolidated in accordance with AIFRS

**Disbursements represent out of pockets expenses that are directly reimbursed from clients

PwC Chief Executive, Tom Seymour said “COVID-19 has once again created a very tough environment for Australian businesses, including our own, however we are proud of the role our people played in helping our clients navigate successfully through this incredibly challenging time.  

“The second half of FY21 saw 12% revenue growth for the Australian firm and we see that demand for our services continuing through the next year.  In particular, we have seen significant demand for our deals, cyber, infrastructure, health advisory as well as our core business offering in assurance and tax.” 

Business performance

Assurance delivered its fifth consecutive year of high single-digit growth from a constant focus on quality in the external audit team, our CFO advisory offering and significant growth in other trust-based assurance services in a time of uncertainty and ambiguity for our clients.  Growth in the Australian Assurance business (excluding overseas interests and disbursements) was 7%, growing to approximately $650m.

Consulting experienced a challenging first half as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic saw immediate reductions in discretionary spend by our clients. In addition, our Consulting business has undergone a restructure leading to a refreshed focus in the market. Despite the first half challenges, revenue growth was flat in the Australian Consulting business (excluding overseas interests and disbursements) when compared to FY20 at approximately $610m. Demand has strongly returned towards the end of FY21, especially in the areas of digital, technology and transformation leading to a strong double digit growth outlook for FY22.

Financial Advisory, which encompasses our integrated infrastructure, deals, private clients, legal and tax businesses, had a strong year supporting some of our country’s most significant transactions and nation building projects. Our clients and the broader market have welcomed the integration of our Financial Advisory capabilities, which has driven increased demand for our services. All of the Financial Advisory divisions achieved significant growth during FY21 with the business achieving 6% growth (excluding overseas interests and disbursements) to approximately $880m.

The firm saw an additional $60m of revenue which falls outside the three businesses from areas such as Social Impact. 

The firm saw above-average growth in each of our growth play areas, including Integrated Infrastructure, Cyber, ESG and the Future of Work.

“I have spent most of the last year listening to the leaders of our clients and the broader community.  We have chosen to invest in capability based on the issues we see our clients facing over the next few years. Our focus is to provide an environment whereby our amazing people can excel serving our clients, continue to attract iconic market leaders to our firm and provide access to incredible technology to help them deliver on their strategy.  The results of our team’s efforts over the past year have set us up for strong double digit growth in FY22”. 

“Over the last twelve months we have restructured and focussed our Consulting business to better respond to our client’s needs, with a refreshed leadership team, which is poised for growth in the coming years. I believe the changes we’ve made are the right path forward and I’m immensely proud of the work our Consulting team has done to get us to the place where we are now.” 

Profit and investing in our people

Like many businesses in FY21, the firm saw both stronger growth and lower costs than predicted at the start of FY21, resulting in a stronger profit performance than expected.

This above expected profit result enabled PwC to make significant investments in our people.  This included record incentive payments, a specific COVID-19 ‘thank you’ bonus, our largest ever remuneration increases and record numbers of promotions.  

Last month the firm also launched a new Total Rewards strategy which will result in higher annual pay increases between promotions and will double to 80 percent the proportion of PwC people who can earn bonuses. The strategy also includes further improvements in several other employee benefits and $15 million investment in a new learning and development program - the PwC Academy.

After this investment, the average income of PwC partners grew by 18% in FY21, following a reduction of 15% in FY20.  

“Our greatest asset and the success of our business is the brilliance and ongoing growth of our people. This is why we have prioritised how we reward and recognise our people as a key pillar of our business strategy,”  Mr Seymour said. 

Transparency and our role in the community

“Large Australian firms such as ours have an obligation to be open and honest with our community and to build trust through transparency. 

“We’re proud to have started a market-wide conversation about transparency in recent years as we’ve disclosed specific non-financial information about our firm including our audit quality balanced scorecard, our gender pay gap and the average effective tax rate of our partners,” Mr Seymour said, “We are proud to have also disclosed that we are carbon neutral in each year since 2008.” 

“We are delighted to share today even more transparent data relating to our impact on our people, our communities and the environment and we look forward to continuing to evolve this reporting in the future,” he said.