(Bloomberg) — Investment into Australia by Chinese private and state-owned companies tumbled in 2023 to the second-lowest level in 18 years, according to a report from KPMG and the University of Sydney.
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The analysis estimated that direct investment slid 37% to $892 million from the previous year. In contrast, China’s global outbound investment jumped in 2023, driven by projects in countries participating in President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative.
For Australia, there were declines in industries such as commercial real estate and mining that have traditionally attracted Chinese companies, according to the report, whose authors included KPMG’s head of Asia & International Markets Doug Ferguson and its China Business Practice partner, Helen Zhi Dent.
A possible shift in Chinese Belt and Road investment from infrastructure and resource off-take toward processing could herald “competitive challenges” for Australia, the team said in the report.
The data in the report exclude portfolio investments that don’t result in foreign management, ownership or legal control. Also outside the report’s scope are investments stemming from Hong Kong and Macau family offices or private entities that aren’t majority-owned by mainland Chinese corporations.
China-Australia ties frayed under former Australian leader Scott Morrison. Relations began improving after the May 2022 election of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government. Last month, China lifted punitive tariffs on Australian wine exports, signaling an end to a campaign of trade pressure.
China is grappling with a lingering property crisis and weak consumer sentiment, clouding the outlook for the world’s second-largest economy.
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The “Big Four” accounting firms employ about 1.3 million people worldwide.
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Many of these employees make six-figure salaries and are eligible for annual bonuses.
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Business Insider analyzed data to determine how much accountants and consultants are paid at these firms.
The so called “Big Four” accounting firms — Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), KPMG, and Ernst & Young (EY) — are known for paying their staff high salaries.
An entry-level consultant who just graduated from business school can make over $200,000 a year at the four firms when you include base salary, bonuses, and relocation expenses.
Several of these firms have faced layoffs and implemented hiring freezes over the past year as demand for consulting services has waned. Still, they’re a good bet for anyone looking to land a six-figure job straight out of school.
Business Insider analyzed the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification’s 2023 disclosure data for permanent and temporary foreign workers to find out what PwC, KPMG, EY, and Deloitte paid US-based employees for jobs ranging from entry-level to executive roles. We looked through entries specifically for roles related to management consulting and accounting. This data does not reflect performance bonuses, signing bonuses, and compensation other than base salaries.
Here’s how much Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and EY paid their hires.
Deloitte paid senior managers between $91,603 to $288,000
With close to 455,000 employees worldwide, Deloitte employs the greatest number of people of any of the ‘Big Four.’ It pulled in close to $64.9 billion in revenue for the 2023 fiscal year, marking a 9.3% increase from 2022.
Deloitte did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its salary data or 2024 hiring plans.
Here are the salary ranges for consulting and accounting roles:
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Analyst: $49,219 to $337,500 (includes advisory, business, project delivery, management, and systems)
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Senior business analyst: $97,739
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Audit and assurance senior assistant: average $58,895
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Consultant: $54,475 to $125,000 (includes advisory, technology strategy, and strategic services)
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Global business process lead: $180,000
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Senior consultant: average $122,211
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Manager: average $152,971
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Tax manager: average $117,268
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Senior manager: $91,603 to $288,000
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Managing director: average $326,769
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Tax managing director: average $248,581
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Principal: $225,000 to $875,000
Principals at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) can make well over $1 million.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is a global professional services firm with over 328,000 employees worldwide. The firm reported a revenue of more than $53 billion for the 2023 fiscal year, marking a 5.6% increase from 2022.
PwC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its salary data or 2024 hiring plans.
Here are the salary ranges for both consulting and accounting roles.
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Associate: $68,000 to $145,200
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Senior associate: $72,000 to $197,000
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Manager: $114,300 to $231,000
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Senior manager: $142,000 to $251,000
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Director: $165,000 to $400,000
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Managing director: $260,000 to $330,600
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Principal: $1,081,182 to $1,376,196
KPMG offers managing directors anywhere between $230,000 to $485,000
KPMG has over 219,000 employees worldwide, working out of over 650 offices. The firm reported a revenue of $36 billion for the 2023 fiscal year, marking a 5% increase from 2022.
Over the past five years, the firm has raised starting salaries for accounting graduates by 26% and “continues to recruit on campuses coming off the heels of our largest summer intern class ever last year (3,300 interns),” a KPMG spokesperson told Business Insider by email.
Here are the salary ranges for consultants, accountants, and leadership at KPMG.
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Associate: $61,000 to $140,000
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Senior associate: $66,248 to $215,000
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Director: $155,600 to $260,000
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Associate director: $155,700 to $196,600
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Specialist director: $174,000 to $225,000
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Lead specialist: $140,500 to $200,000
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Senior specialist: $134,000 to $155,000
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Manager: $99,445 to $293,800
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Senior manager: $110,677 to $332,800
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Managing director: $230,000 to $485,000
Statisticians at Ernst & Young (EY) make salaries ranging between $66,000 to $283,500.
EY employs more than 298,000 people in more than 150 countries worldwide. For the 2023 fiscal year, the firm reported a record revenue of $49.4 billion, marking a 9.3% jump from 2022.
The firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its salary data or 2024 hiring plans.
Here are the salary ranges for consultants, accountants, auditors, and chief executives at the firm:
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Accountants and auditors: $54,000 to $390,000
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Appraisers and assessors of real estate: $166,626 to $185,444
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Analyst: $145,000 to $239,670 (includes financial & investment and operations research)
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Computer systems analyst: $62,000 to $367,510
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Management analyst: $49,220 to $337,500
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Statistician: $66,000 to $283,500
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Financial risk specialist: $62,000 to $342,400
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Actuaries: $84,800 to $291,459
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Economist: $77,000 to $141,000
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Logisticians: $72,000 t0 $275,000
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Mathematicians: $165,136 to $377,000
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Computer and information systems manager: $136,167 to $600,000
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Financial manager: average $320,000
Aman Kidwai and Weng Cheong contributed to an earlier version of this post.
Read the original article on Business Insider
MUMBAI :Top consulting companies are poaching from rival firms for newer skills and experienced hands, even as they lose some of their own bright minds to competitors. At a time of rising opportunities in artificial intelligence to business transformation and risk to digital advisory, a number of global consulting bluechips in India have seen top partners switch jobs and take up new roles.
Top consulting companies are poaching from rival firms for newer skills and experienced hands, even as they lose some of their own bright minds to competitors. At a time of rising opportunities in artificial intelligence to business transformation and risk to digital advisory, a number of global consulting bluechips in India have seen top partners switch jobs and take up new roles.
In March, PwC hired Santosh Subramaniam from Accenture as partner, strategy and transformation; while KPMG hired Ankur Nishar, earlier director at PwC and later Price Waterhouse & Co LLP, as partner in its deals and tax advisory practice. In December, KPMG hired EY’s Sneha Gharat as partner, deal advisory, infrastructure; in the same month, Chirag Agrawal from EY joined as head of corporate finance and investment banking at Deloitte South Asia.
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In March, PwC hired Santosh Subramaniam from Accenture as partner, strategy and transformation; while KPMG hired Ankur Nishar, earlier director at PwC and later Price Waterhouse & Co LLP, as partner in its deals and tax advisory practice. In December, KPMG hired EY’s Sneha Gharat as partner, deal advisory, infrastructure; in the same month, Chirag Agrawal from EY joined as head of corporate finance and investment banking at Deloitte South Asia.
All executives have updated the change in their LinkedIn profiles; PwC, Deloitte and Accenture did not respond to queries sent on Tuesday.
“The consulting market is dynamic, creating multiple opportunities for executives within and at times outside the firm,” said KPMG, which has 650 partners and practice leads. “With our strong bench strength, it’s only natural to lose a handful of executives to the industry which only reflects the quality of talent within the firm. We are constantly on the lookout for good talent, especially those with proven leadership skills,” a KPMG spokesperson said in an email.
Consulting companies are keen on hiring top partners, since they hold the potential to bring in additional talent from their previous employer. Reasons for the shifts vary from higher compensation, opportunity to leverage niche skills, preference for younger partners and seniors exiting the consulting practice amid stiffer targets.
A senior Deloitte executive said the audit and consulting firm, which has about 700 partners, is expanding aggressively in technology, compliance, and mergers and acquisitions. “There were 50 partners and executive directors hired last year and 100 promotions for partners rolled out in April 2023”. The next batch of promotions is expected to be rolled out in a few weeks.
In January, Mint reported that consultancy firms in India would be handing out 100% bonus for the year that was “good, but not best”, while their global counterparts would be getting much less. Consulting teams advising clients in areas such as AI, machine learning, cybersecurity, and healthcare have seen rapid growth in business, swelling team strengths and sparking discussions on better bonuses, the report said.
The largest consulting firms have as many as 750 partners, a base which is expanding constantly. However, the struggle to hire is universal in this domain.
Partners at consultancies earn fixed sums, or are paid on the basis of their equity investment. The first earn ₹1-2 crore annually, irrespective of the business, an executive at a Big Four consultancy said on condition of anonymity. The second lot are those who have invested in the consultancy firm, and get a share of the profits.
According to a top executive at a talent search company, partners are switching jobs to secure pay hikes of as much as 30%, a larger share of the business and higher designation. “In the last couple of years, some of the traditional businesses have truncated, while new-age ones are getting more visibility. The Big Four heads are dialling erstwhile teammates who have risen in the financial services space,” said the executive, whose company hires for consulting and audit firms.
“Partners invest in the business and they get a cut from the revenue. But, not all businesses are growing at same pace and those in digital or AI are where the growth is,” a senior executive at PwC said on condition of anonymity.
Investors are preparing for a record sell-off of Asia-Pacific real estate this year, which could see long-awaited price corrections in many office markets.
More than 40% of APAC investors will be net sellers of real estate this year, the highest proportion since records began in 2014, according to CBRE’s 2024 Asia Pacific Investor Intentions Survey.
The survey polled more than 510 investors across the region in November and December.
Much of the selling activity is likely to be concentrated on office assets, according to advisors and consultants.
“Uncertainties over office demand, given hybrid working arrangements, will continue to weigh on the office sector,” said Christine Li, head of research at Knight Frank Asia Pacific.
Christine Li
Knight Frank APAC
Li pointed to other structural headwinds for the sector this year: “The current global economic slowdown particularly with large scale technology and banking retrenchments could continue to weigh in the near term.”
“While industrial and office sectors remain popular among Asia Pacific investors, interest in these asset types has been declining since 2021,” said Henry Chin, global head of investor thought leadership and head of research, Asia Pacific for CBRE.
SUFFERING OFFICE SECTOR
“The return-to-work story is not playing out quite as was expected,” said Andrew Thompson, head of private equity, at KPMG Asia Pacific in Singapore.
He added that the reluctance of employees to return to the office five days a week has seen unanticipated shifts in how offices are located, designed and used, with employers seeking more efficient use of office assets, and a shift to temporary from fixed offices.
Henry Chin
CBRE
“The impact of an employee working from home is much more than a 20% cut in the real estate required [by the employer]. They are looking at their whole real estate offering,” he said.
“Agile working trends will continue to exert downward price pressure on offices, while ESG issues may render some older building obsolete in the future,” said Simon Smith, regional head, research and consultancy, Asia Pacific at Savills in Hong Kong.
“Office yield is quite low across the region: most markets have a negative yield carry. Industrial is rather fully priced and there is a limited supply of assets to trade. With lease terms typically between five and ten years, or even longer, it is not a good hedge against inflation in the current environment,” he added.
China faces further obstacles peculiar to its current development cycle and wider economy, said James Macdonald, head of research and consultancy at Savills China in Shanghai.
“[Waning interest in offices] in China is largely a result of overbuild over the last three-five years, and anaemic growth in demand, given the current economic prospects. Vacancy rates in many markets are at decade highs,” he said.
PRICE CUTS WILL BE KEY
If they act on their intentions, investor selling this year will break a long-standing stalemate, which has seen transactions in the APAC sector fall significantly, as owners of private assets refuse to drop prices and buyers continue to wait for repricing.
Andrew Thompson
KPMG
“The liquid REIT [real estate investment trust] markets fell between 25% and 30% [from their peaks in 2022] but owners of unlisted assets closed their eyes, pretending nothing had happened,” said Thompson.
Without the readiness to cut prices, however, investors’ avowed intention to sell is unlikely to come to anything.
The importance of price cuts is illustrated by the finding that, where investors are planning to buy this year, repricing is the most common reason.
In the CBRE survey, it was cited by 23% of those who intended to buy properties this year, ahead of the growing availability of distressed opportunities, reported as the second most common reason for a planned purchase, at 17%.
“The mismatch in pricing expectations between buyers and sellers remains a major concern for investors,” noted the CBRE report.
Li at Knight Frank contrasted the slow pace of re-pricing in APAC office markets to the retail sector, where quicker repricing saw the sector pick up last year.
-The share of investor flows into retail increased to 22% in 2023 from 17% of total spend in 2022, according to Knight Frank data.
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The figure of 1,499 consultants does not however include 1,037 Young Professionals, 539 independent consultants, 354 domain experts, 1,481 retired government officers, and 20,376 other low-paid staff hired on contract by 76 departments employed directly or through outsourcing agencies. Nor is information available on payments made to these people by the union government. While the consultants are being paid between one and four lakh Rupees, Young Professionals are said to receive between Rs 50 to 70 thousand a month.
The information was collated by the Department of Expenditure under the Union Ministry of Finance based on the information received from 76 departments about individuals/firms working with them on a contractual basis.
The top six departments, according to the report, with the highest number of consultants are Health and Family Welfare (203), Rural Development (166), Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (149), Ministry of Housing and Urban Administration (147), Women and Child Development (112) and Road Transport and Highway (99).
NITI Aayog employs 95 individuals as Young Professionals at present. Among independent consultants hired on contract, the top three are Agriculture and Farmers Welfare (86), NITI (52), and Road Transport and Highways (41).
With the government abolishing Group D (peons, data entry, housekeeping, etc) recruitment, personnel for such jobs are being hired through outsourcing agencies.