RSM Ebner Stolz breaks turnover threshold of 400 million euros

• Tur­no­ver grows by 16 per cent in the 2023 fi­nan­cial year
• As­surance, tax con­sul­ting, le­gal con­sul­ting and ma­nage­ment con­sul­ting con­ti­nue po­si­tive de­ve­lop­ment
• In­ter­na­tio­na­li­sa­tion, di­gi­ta­li­sa­tion, sus­tai­na­bi­lity: RSM Eb­ner Stolz dri­ves for­ward fu­ture to­pics

Stutt­gart, 28 May 2024 - The au­diting and con­sul­ting firm RSM Eb­ner Stolz clo­sed the 2023 fi­nan­cial year with re­ve­nues of more than EUR 400 mil­lion for the first time. With an in­crease of 16 per cent, the com­pany con­ti­nued the growth of pre­vious years. All four areas - as­surance, tax con­sul­ting, le­gal con­sul­ting and ma­nage­ment con­sul­ting - de­ve­lo­ped po­si­tively.

RSM Eb­ner Stolz in fi­gu­res

‘We are de­ligh­ted that we have been able to con­ti­nue the growth of re­cent years in 2023 with an out­stan­ding team per­for­mance. We would like to thank all our col­lea­gues who have made this suc­cess pos­si­ble with their ex­cep­tio­nal com­mit­ment. By joi­ning the RSM net­work in 2023, we have also crea­ted an im­port­ant foun­da­tion for the fur­ther de­ve­lop­ment of our com­pany, which will open up new op­por­tu­nities for our cli­ents and em­ployees in the in­ter­na­tio­nal en­viron­ment,’ says Prof Dr Hol­ger Jen­zen, Part­ner and spo­kes­per­son for the part­nership at RSM Eb­ner Stolz.

New network, new name

With the net­work change, RSM Eb­ner Stolz last year re­spon­ded to the in­cre­asing de­mand for cross-bor­der as­surance and ad­vi­sory ser­vices in the Ger­man mid-mar­ket sec­tor. The stra­te­gic move is in­ten­ded both to fur­ther pro­fes­sio­na­lise the com­pany's ser­vice port­fo­lio in the in­te­rests of its cli­ents and to fa­ci­li­tate in­ter­na­tio­nal ex­change for our em­ployees. As the world's sixth-lar­gest net­work with a fo­cus on SMEs, RSM's glo­bal pre­sence in 120 coun­tries with 820 of­fices and a 16 per cent in­crease in re­ve­nues to USD 9.4 bil­lion in 2023 pro­vide a strong foun­da­tion for achie­ving this goal.

Stable transaction business in the midmarket supports growth

As in pre­vious years, RSM Eb­ner Stolz con­ti­nued to be­ne­fit from gro­wing M&A busi­ness in the mid-mar­ket sec­tor in 2023. With over 500 tran­sac­tions, the com­pany ad­vi­sed on si­gni­fi­cantly more com­pany ac­qui­si­ti­ons and sa­les than in pre­vious years.

RSM Eb­ner Stolz's ad­vi­sory ser­vices co­vered com­pa­nies of all si­zes and sec­tors, but par­ti­cu­larly in the areas of pri­vate equity, soft­ware & tech­no­logy, au­to­mo­tive as well as plant and me­cha­ni­cal en­gi­nee­ring.

Focus on trending topics: sustainability and digitalisation

RSM Eb­ner Stolz is ex­pan­ding the range of di­gi­tal ser­vices it of­fers its cli­ents across all di­vi­si­ons by de­ve­lo­ping its own so­lu­ti­ons or ac­qui­ring ex­ter­nal ex­per­tise. For ex­am­ple, as part of joi­ning the RSM net­work last year, the com­pany ac­qui­red RSM DE Tech­no­logy & Ma­nage­ment Con­sul­ting GmbH, the world's lar­gest im­ple­men­ta­tion part­ner for Net­Suite, an ERP cloud so­lu­tion from Ora­cle that is spe­cially tailo­red to SMEs.

In in­ter­di­sci­pli­nary terms, the to­pic of sus­tai­na­bi­lity is also be­com­ing in­cre­asin­gly im­port­ant for the com­pany. The de­mand for as­surance and con­sul­ting ser­vices such as ESG due di­li­gence or green tax has re­cently ac­ce­le­ra­ted once again due to in­cre­asing re­gu­latory re­qui­re­ments and geo­po­li­ti­cal de­ve­lop­ments. RSM Eb­ner Stolz is the­re­fore con­sis­tently ex­pan­ding its ex­per­tise in this area, both in terms of con­tent and per­son­nel.

Assurance business booming

At around EUR 162.4 mil­lion, as­surance contri­bu­ted the lar­gest share of to­tal sa­les. The main dri­ver for the growth of 16.4 per cent was the tra­di­tio­nal au­dit of fi­nan­cial state­ments. The ba­sis for the re­ne­wed in­crease in de­mand was pro­vi­ded by me­dium-si­zed com­pa­nies and the ac­qui­si­tion of ad­di­tio­nal non-PIE man­da­tes such as EDEKA and Pos­sehl.

In terms of per­son­nel, the com­pany con­ti­nued its ex­pan­sion with fur­ther ad­di­ti­ons and trai­ning, par­ti­cu­larly in the area of sus­tai­na­bi­lity. The de­mand for ESG au­diting and con­sul­ting ser­vices, par­ti­cu­larly with re­gard to non-fi­nan­cial re­por­ting and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the CSRD and EU ta­xo­nomy, will af­fect mid-mar­ket com­pa­nies in par­ti­cu­lar.

High demand for tax advice

RSM Eb­ner Stolz's tax con­sul­ting ser­vices re­cor­ded an 18.2 per cent in­crease in re­ve­nues in 2023 and contri­bu­ted around 37 per cent to to­tal re­ve­nues with just un­der EUR 147 mil­lion. The si­gni­fi­cant growth can be at­tri­bu­ted to the con­sis­tent streng­the­ning of pro­mi­sing spe­cia­li­sa­ti­ons such as the ex­pan­sion of suc­ces­sion, trans­fer pri­cing and VAT con­sul­ting, but also to the si­gni­fi­cantly in­cre­asing de­mands of mid-mar­ket en­ter­pri­ses. In the past year, the firm also suc­cee­ded in ex­pan­ding its cross-bor­der ad­vi­sory ser­vices in both the out­bound and in­bound areas, which was si­gni­fi­cantly boos­ted in par­ti­cu­lar by the ac­ces­sion of RSM. RSM Eb­ner Stolz was thus able to fur­ther es­ta­blish its­elf as one of the stron­gest pro­vi­ders in the tax mar­ket and win nu­me­rous man­da­tes in the core area of the up­per mid­mar­ket.

In the com­ing years, RSM Eb­ner Stolz's tax con­sul­tancy will fo­cus on the fur­ther ex­pan­sion of ad­vice on in­ter­na­tio­nal tax law, for ex­am­ple on glo­bal mi­ni­mum tax (Pil­lar II). In ad­di­tion, the fur­ther de­ve­lop­ment of the Tax Tech­no­logy di­vi­sion and the de­ve­lop­ment of in­no­va­tive ap­proa­ches such as Green Tax, i.e. the de­ve­lop­ment of so­lu­ti­ons for a sus­tai­nable and at the same time tax-op­ti­mi­sed fu­ture, will be of great im­port­ance.

Legal division continues to grow

RSM Eb­ner Stolz's le­gal di­vi­sion also con­ti­nued to grow last year. The 5.2 per cent in­crease in re­ve­nues to just un­der EUR 51 mil­lion was somewhat more mo­de­rate fol­lo­wing the high growth ra­tes and con­side­ra­ble in­crease in per­son­nel in pre­vious years due to fur­ther con­so­li­da­tion.

The lar­gest contri­bu­ti­ons to the tur­no­ver of RSM Eb­ner Stolz's le­gal di­vi­sion came from a con­ti­nued very stable M&A busi­ness, in par­ti­cu­lar tran­sac­tions with PE par­ti­ci­pa­tion, and in­cre­asin­gly from the li­ti­ga­tion area, which fo­cus­sed pri­ma­rily on pro­duct lia­bi­lity claims. There was also a si­gni­fi­cant in­crease in de­mand for ad­vice on re­struc­tu­ring. RSM Eb­ner Stolz pro­vi­ded in­ter­di­sci­pli­nary ad­vice to com­pa­nies from the au­to­mo­tive, cera­mics and plant en­gi­nee­ring sec­tors, among others, un­der the lea­dership of the le­gal de­part­ment.

RSM Eb­ner Stolz will con­ti­nue to in­vest in the fur­ther de­ve­lop­ment of its le­gal ad­vice in the fu­ture. The fo­cus here is on both the stra­te­gic ex­pan­sion of the full-ser­vice of­fe­ring and the tar­ge­ted streng­the­ning of in­di­vi­dual lo­ca­ti­ons and areas of law in terms of per­son­nel. In ad­di­tion to the es­ta­blis­hed of­fices in Stutt­gart, Co­lo­gne and Ham­burg, this was achie­ved last year in par­ti­cu­lar with the ad­di­tion of ad­vi­sory teams in Bonn and Frank­furt.

Management consultancy with record turnover

The ma­nage­ment con­sul­tancy RSM Eb­ner Stolz Ma­nage­ment Con­sul­tants in­crea­sed its re­ve­nues by 21 per cent to EUR 42.3 mil­lion, re­cor­ding its best fi­nan­cial year since it was foun­ded. The ma­nage­ment con­sul­ting ac­tivi­ties fo­cu­sed on pro­vi­ding sup­port for re­or­ga­ni­sa­tion and re­struc­tu­ring in cri­ti­cal si­tua­ti­ons as well as the im­ple­men­ta­tion of trans­for­ma­tion pro­gram­mes, in par­ti­cu­lar carve-outs. Cli­ents were also as­sis­ted with com­plex M&A deals, stra­te­gic al­li­an­ces and di­gi­ta­li­sa­tion in­itia­ti­ves in fi­nance and ac­coun­ting.

With a si­gni­fi­cant in­crease in the num­ber of new em­ployees, RSM Eb­ner Stolz Ma­nage­ment Con­sul­tants 2023 also strengt­he­ned its work­force and fur­ther ex­pan­ded its re­struc­tu­ring ex­per­tise in par­ti­cu­lar with the ad­di­tion of a large team in Ham­burg.

The po­si­tive de­ve­lop­ment of RSM Eb­ner Stolz's ma­nage­ment con­sul­tancy was once again con­fir­med by pres­ti­gious awards last year. For ex­am­ple, the ma­nage­ment con­sul­tants were ho­no­ured as ‘Best Con­sul­tants’ by the busi­ness ma­ga­zine brand eins. In the ‘Best of Con­sul­ting’ com­pe­ti­tion or­ga­nised by Wirt­schafts­Wo­che, RSM Eb­ner Stolz won in the ‘Fi­nance’ ca­te­gory with its sup­port for a tran­sac­tion as part of a stra­te­gic al­li­ance in agri­cul­tu­ral trade.

The key to success: personnel recruiting

De­spite com­plex glo­bal po­li­ti­cal and eco­no­mic con­di­ti­ons, RSM Eb­ner Stolz is once again plan­ning dou­ble-di­git growth in the 2024 fi­nan­cial year. ‘We can only achieve this goal if we re­tain our ex­cel­lently trai­ned em­ployees in the long term, at­tract new ones and con­ti­nue to pre­sent our­sel­ves as an ex­tre­mely at­trac­tive em­ployer both in­ter­nally and ex­ter­nally,’ says Hol­ger Jen­zen, sum­ma­ri­sing the most im­port­ant pre­re­qui­si­tes.

Press contact

Hen­ning Mar­bur­ger
RSM Eb­ner Stolz
Holz­markt 1
50676 Co­lo­gne
Phone +49 221 20643-628
hen­ning.mar­bur­ger@eb­ner­stolz.de

Firm contact

Prof Dr Hol­ger Jen­zen
RSM Eb­ner Stolz
Kro­nen­straße 30
70174ö Stutt­gart
Phone +49 711 2049-1212
hol­ger.jen­zen@eb­ner­stolz.de

About RSM Ebner Stolz

RSM Eb­ner Stolz is one of the lar­gest in­de­pen­dent middle-mar­ket as­surance and con­sul­ting firms in Ger­many. The com­pany is among the top ten in the in­dus­try and has broad ex­per­tise in as­surance, tax, le­gal and ma­nage­ment con­sul­ting. With this mul­ti­di­sci­pli­nary con­sul­ting ap­proach and as one of the mar­ket lea­ders in the middle-mar­ket sec­tor with more than 2,400 em­ployees at 14 lo­ca­ti­ons, RSM Eb­ner Stolz ser­ves na­tio­nal and in­ter­na­tio­nal in­dus­trial, com­mer­cial and ser­vice en­ter­pri­ses in all sec­tors.

As a mem­ber of RSM In­ter­na­tio­nal, RSM Eb­ner Stolz of­fers its cli­ents high-qua­lity as­surance and con­sul­ting ser­vices in 120 coun­tries with 820 of­fices world­wide.