Frank Hirth

Background

Based in London, this accountancy firm was founded back in the 1970s. Frank Hirth specialises in tax compliance for the UK and US markets. For the last 45 years, the firm has aimed to support its clients in navigating through complex regulations and tax planning issues that apply across borders.

On 4 May 2021, Frank Hirth was acquired by EY, one of the country’s Big Four accountancy firms. Some 195 of the firm’s employees, serving 4,000 of Frank Hirth clients, moved over to work for EY as part of the deal. Currently, the organisation operates as EY Frank Hirth Limited, and its employees work alongside its parent firm’s private tax teams.

Frank Hirth provides a variety of tax and financial services to its many clients from various sectors of business, including the hospitality, technology and public sectors. These include, but are not limited to:

• Private Tax Services – including tax advice and reporting for individuals and families, specialist US tax advice, private capital agenda, compliance and reporting, and tax risk management
• Trusts, estates and family wealth services – including family office services, estate and trust management, and risk management for family offices
• Private capital and business tax services – including UK and international tax advice, tax planning on acquisitions and disposals, partnership tax compliance and advisory work, and access to the firm’s specialist teams

Financials

As a wider group, EY reported combined global revenues of $37.2bn (£26.8bn) for the financial year ended June 2020, a year-on-year climb of 4.1%.

EY’s tax division saw the largest increase in revenues, rising 5.1% from $9.46bn (£6.81bn) to $9.76bn (£7.03bn), as its transaction advisory services represented the lowest jump of 2.8% to the smallest revenue of $4.09bn (£2.95bn).

As for the company’s UK operations, it saw a fee income increase of 5% to £2.6bn for the 53 weeks ended 3 July 2020.

With Frank Hirth only just having just been added to the firm, there are no updated figures regarding how the deal has impacted the financial results of EY’s tax division since the acquisition. 

Recent Coverage

On the 2 October 2023 the EY Frank Hirth team became known as the US/UK Cross Border team – this change happened in conjunction with the renaming of the associated legal entity (for engagement/employment purposes) to EY Private Client Services Limited. These changes reflect the integration of the business in to the EY Private Tax Practice.