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Business Consulting
Our Consulting team guarantees quick turnarounds, lower partner-to-staff ratio than most and superior results delivered on a range of services.
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Business Risk Services
Our Business Risk Services team deliver practical and pragmatic solutions that support clients in growing and protecting the inherent value of their businesses.
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Corporate Finance
Our experienced Corporate Finance team has provided a range of transaction, valuation, deal advisory and restructuring services to clients for the past two decades.
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Digital Risk
Our Digital Risk team offer advisory and consulting solutions that give our clients peace of mind, clear value for money and an enhanced ability to react to cyber attacks.
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Digital Transformation
Our Digital Transformation team work with business leaders to deliver efficient digital strategies and operating models that provide new or enhanced capabilities.
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Forensic Accounting
Our Forensic and Investigation Services team have targeted solutions to solve difficult challenges - making the difference between finding the truth or being left in the dark.
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Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is a goal setting framework that helps teams, individuals and organisations set and track measurable goals.
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People and Change Consulting
Our People & Change Consulting team help clients adapt to the changing nature of the workforce - how they attract, retain, engage, develop, deploy and lead their people.
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Restructuring
Grant Thornton is Ireland’s leading provider of insolvency and corporate recovery solutions.
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Outsourced Payroll
Our outsourced payroll teams become your dedicated payroll department, aiming to process your payroll in the most cost effective and compliant manner.
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Outsourcing
Grant Thornton's reliable and cost-effective outsourcing services help you streamline your business operations by taking care of your workload.
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Audit and Accounting Advisory
Our Audit and Accounting Advisory team takes the headache out of multi-jurisdictional audit compliance requirements as well as technical compliance with accounting standards and legislation for clients.
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Business Process Outsourcing
Grant Thornton’s Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) team serves the needs of rapidly growing mid-tier multinationals operating out of Ireland and other hubs through the provision of services across the full range of finance functions.
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Flexible People Solutions
At Grant Thornton, our Financial Accounting and Advisory Services (FAAS) department have a dedicated team that help finance functions maximise efficiency.
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Global Compliance & Reporting Solutions
Our Global Compliance & Reporting Solutions service offering covers a full suite of compliance services including financial statement preparation and related filings, dual bookkeeping, direct and indirect tax, statistical returns and payroll.
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Global Payroll Solutions
At Grant Thornton, we meet the challenges of our clients. Our Global payroll compliance service offering is tailored to meet all your payroll requirements through a single point of contact.
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Actuarial
Our Actuarial team provides a comprehensive range of services to our insurance clients. From regulatory support for compliance to delivering specialist expertise in insurance & reinsurance.
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Data Analytics
Our team helps to unlock the potential of data analytics within your organisation, allowing you to be more innovative, efficient and customer-centric than ever before.
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Digital and Fintech
Our FinTech team are experts in technology and financial services and have a long track record of helping companies achieve sustained advantage.
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Digital Risk
Our Digital Risk team offer advisory and consulting solutions that give our clients peace of mind, clear value for money and an enhanced ability to react to cyber attacks.
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Financial Services Audit
Our Financial Services Audit team offers expertise and knowledge along with a horizontal approach to solving clients’ problems and queries.
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Financial Services Consulting
We work closely with clients to understand their strategy and benchmark their performance against the very best international standards.
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Financial Services Tax
Grant Thornton Ireland has a team of over 100 tax professionals providing advice to a diverse range of clients in the Financial Services sector.
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FS Business Risk Services
Our FS Business Risk team have real experience of the financial services sector, through working within regulatory bodies or holding leadership positions in Risk, Compliance and Internal Audit functions.
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Grant Thornton Pensioneer Trustees Limited
The Grant Thornton Pensioneer Trustee service can offer business owners, directors and employees the opportunity to manage their own retirement choices with full transparency.
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Pension Audit
The Grant Thornton Pension Audit team has vast experience in managing schemes and preparing annual reports on them for clients.
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Prudential Risk
Our industry leading Prudential Risk team works with clients on a range of areas including regulatory reporting, regulatory authorisations, on-site investigations and data quality assurance.
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Quantitative Risk
Our Quantitative Risk team members bring a wide range of experience with many of them having backgrounds in banking, investment markets, regulation, professional practice, and academia.
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Sustainability desk
We recognise that businesses are operating at different levels of maturity when it comes to sustainability, and pride ourselves on working with our clients to develop bespoke solutions to their needs.
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Financial Accounting and Advisory Services (FAAS)
Our Financial Accounting and Advisory Services (FAAS) team designs and implements creative solutions for organisations expanding into new markets or undertaking functional financial transformations.
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Grant Thornton Financial Counselling
Grant Thornton Financial Counselling (GTFC) comprises a team of highly qualified professionals who offer financial advice to individuals and corporates across a range of areas including savings, investments, pension planning, and inheritance and succession planning.
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Inheritance Planning
Our services on Inheritance Planning mirror those on Succession Planning whereby the foundations of the plan are derived from meaningful conversations with those that wish to pass on or protect their asset base.
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Personal Tax Compliance & Planning
The Grant Thornton Personal Tax team helps clients remain compliant and up to date with all of their tax obligations whilst ensuring that they are solutions driven and manage their finances in the most tax efficient way possible.
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Succession Planning
We have extensive experience guiding our clients successfully through the succession process. This involves advice on both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the process. While there is a business at the core of each succession plan we advise on, it is all predicated on understanding the people and their respective wishes.
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Company Secretarial
Grant Thornton’s Company Secretarial team contains qualified Company Secretaries. Clients are assured that they will meet all of their obligations under the Companies Acts and other relevant legislation and regulations.
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Corporation Tax
Our Corporation Tax team is made up of more than 40 highly experienced senior partners and directors who work directly with a wide range of domestic, international, and financial services clients. We place a strong emphasis on direct service to clients and we pride ourselves on the close personal relationships we build and the deep understanding of their businesses we develop
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Employer Solutions
Attracting and retaining key talent, managing employment costs and ensuring compliance with complex tax rules presents one of the most serious challenges today for many businesses. You need to ensure that your business complies with increasingly complex tax legislation and can adapt to updated Revenue guidance in a cost-effective way and we are here to help.
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Financial Services Tax
The Grant Thornton team is made up of experts who are fully up to date in terms of changing and evolving tax legislation. This is combined with industry expertise and an in-depth knowledge of the evolving financial services regulatory landscape.
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Global Mobility Services
Grant Thornton Ireland offer a different approach to managing global mobility. We have brought together specialists from our tax, global payroll, people and change and financial accounting teams across Ireland and Northern Ireland, while drawing on the knowledge and insights of our global network of over 143 offices of mobility professionals to provide you with a holistic approach to managing global mobility.
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International Tax
We develop close relationships with clients in order to gain a deep understanding of their businesses to ensure they make the right operational decisions. The wrong decision on how a company sells into a new market or establishes a new subsidiary can have major tax implications.
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Tax Advisory
The Grant Thornton Tax Advisory team blends commercial experience and knowledge with tax expertise to advise clients on the full range of transactions including sales, mergers, restructurings and succession planning.
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Tax Incentives
Our Tax Incentives team help clients access vital cash funding and tax incentives to enable them to achieve their growth ambition.
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Transfer Pricing
Our Transfer Pricing team has extensive experience across all industries. They can assist clients in overcoming challenges and deliver sector specific, sustainable solutions.
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VAT
Grant Thornton’s team of indirect tax specialists helps a range of clients across a variety of sectors including pharmaceuticals, financial services, construction and property and food to navigate these complexities.
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Real Estate Tax Advisory
The Irish real estate market has experienced considerable change in recent years. This has resulted in the emergence of a number of challenges for investors, but has also brought about significant opportunities. With this in mind, taxation is now more than ever one of the key factors for real estate investors when appraising investments, financing methods and development structuring.
Introduction
By the early hours of Friday 24 June, it was clear that history was about to be made and that the bookies had, in fact, got it wrong with the British public deciding to end the UK's 41-year membership of the EU. There were many reasons cited as fundamental to the decision that can probably be reduced to couple of main (perceived or otherwise) issues: disenfranchisement and a dislike for the apparent lack of democracy and independence created by the governing power of the EU.
The percentage margin makes it look like a far closer call than the reality with the facts speaking for themselves - some 17.4 million voters, (52% - a majority of 1.25 million) in favour of leaving the EU. Given these numbers it seems extremely unlikely that the vote will be put back to the people or indeed that Parliament will seek to ignore the views of the electorate.
Ireland’s focus
Ireland’s focus should be on the reality that Britain has decided to exit the EU and how our future as their closest neighbour, biggest trading partner and intertwined history will be shaped due to their decision to sever ties with the EU.
The new Prime Minister, Theresa May has indicated that Brexit means Brexit. Ireland has a unique and historical relationship with the UK and it will feel the biggest impact amongst the remaining EU members with the most immediate concerns being trade, free movement of people and the position of Northern Ireland. The Irish Government have made it clear that Ireland’s intention is to preserve our close ties and relationship with the UK in so far as is possible.
Referendum aftermath
Before the result of the referendum was even two weeks old, it felt as though the reverberations of the decision were only just beginning.
British politics imploded with two of the most prominent and vocal “Leave” advocates stepping down; the Prime Minister resigned; sterling plummeted to lows not seen for thirty one years; billions were wiped off UK pensions and stock markets; pre-referendum promises were retracted; there have been marches for another vote as well as a petition signed by 4.5 million people for a re-run; noises that the stability of the Northern Irish peace process may be called into question and echoes of Scotland’s politicians calling for another referendum to split from the UK.
The ultimate effect of Brexit will remain unknown until alternative arrangements have been negotiated. In the interim, contingency planning is made difficult in the absence of any clarity around the timescale or precise arrangements for the UK’s exit from the EU or what the new relationship between the UK and EU will be (if any).
Exit process
As of yet, no formal exit notification (as required under Article 50 of the Treaty of the EU) has been made by the UK and the new Prime Minister has indicated that no negotiations will commence until early 2017.
The UK political arena has been somewhat tumultuous and ever-changing in the weeks following Brexit and as of Wednesday 13 July, Theresa May stepped up as new Prime Minister. Until a cabinet reshuffle is complete and there is clarity as to who will be sitting at the table to lead negotiations with the EU, it remains unknown as to when the commencement of the formal exit process will take place but as noted above, the new Prime Minister indicating it is not likely until early 2017.
The cabinet reshuffle in the UK is well underway with announcements coming in every few hours. David Davis has been appointed to the new cabinet position of secretary of state for exiting the European Union - or "Brexit secretary". Details about the new Brexit department are still emerging, but it is likely to take the lead in negotiating the UK's departure from the EU. Boris Johnson succeeds Philip Hammond at the Foreign Office who has been named Chancellor of the Exchequer.
It should be remembered that until the withdrawal agreement comes into force the UK remains a full EU Member with all the existing rights, privileges and obligations that that entails. The UK will formally leave the EU on the day the withdrawal agreement enters into force or two years from the date of submission of the Article 50 exit notification. Until such time, there is no change the U.K.’s membership of the EU including to the free flow of people, goods and services between Ireland and the UK.
Where are we now?
In the immediate future there will be turbulent times as the uncertainty leads to volatile markets and currency fluctuations. The UK currency plummeted to a 31-year low post-Brexit against the dollar and to a rate of GBP£1 = €1.19. It rebounded slightly against the euro in the first week, to around €1.21, but has been dropping on an incremental basis since with some commentators suggesting that it will continue fluctuating for the foreseeable future.
As sterling falls, the cost of Irish goods and services to UK consumers goes up - so they buy less making Irish exports less competitive with the likely consequence of any exchange risk being pushed onto Irish companies. This causes obvious challenges for Irish exporters to the UK market. Irish retailers that have pre-purchased stock in sterling are also prevented from benefitting from the weakening sterling currency. Some Irish wholesale food groups have already starting passing on such price reductions to Irish producers and/or farmers.
In general where economic confidence takes a hit, coupled with uncertainty, it affects the decisions of retailers, manufacturers and all involved in the supply chain in-between. The property market takes a nosedive as indecision and hesitancy take a hold with this fed through to property development and construction. Mergers and acquisitions activity slows. The longer the exit and negotiation process takes, the longer the market volatility continues, the longer there is a difficult trading and investment environment. We have already seen UK property funds suspend trading due to high numbers of requests from investors to cash out.
In broad terms a weaker sterling hurts Irish businesses, market activity, investment decisions, exchequer returns and job creation.
We are living through a significant moment in history and certainly the most important time in the EU since its inception. It is only when the dust settles on the initial shock and the political situation in the UK is formalised that the real negotiations will begin to determine the future of Britain and its relationship with the EU and we will know what the true implications of Brexit are in economic, cultural and social terms.