Asia News Network (The Straits Times), Singapore | Business | Fri, June 08 2012, 10:56 AM
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, one of the Big Four accounting firms, is spending about US$400 million over the next three years to add staff and expand in Asia.
The investment highlights the importance of the region to Deloitte and to the global economy, said Chaly Mah, regional managing director of Deloitte Asia-Pacific. “We in South-east Asia are pleased to be identified as a strategic market, and are focusing our investments in our key market in Singapore, together with other high-growth markets like Indonesia and Vietnam.”
For instance, about $67 million will have been invested in Singapore “over the past few years and in the next three years”, he said.
Mah, who is also the chief executive of Deloitte South-east Asia, said this fresh infusion of funds would go towards hiring, talent deployment, new services and providing “multidisciplinary offerings” to clients in Singapore and across the region.
As an example, he pointed to Deloitte Singapore's investment last year in the Asia-Pacific Deloitte Analytics Institute “to cater to the trend and future of big data and analytics”.
Deloitte's Singapore office currently employs about 2,000 staff. It is part of a larger Southeast Asia unit, with 5,500 employees.
Mah also told The Straits Times that the funds may also be used for snapping up other companies. “In Singapore, we will not be able to achieve our strategic investments merely through organic growth, and we will be looking at acquisitions.”
In total, Deloitte is investing $750 million in 11 “strategic markets”, including countries in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.
More than $250 million will go towards markets in Europe and the Middle East.
Also, $550 million of the total investment is earmarked for talent hiring, deployment and development across the 11 markets.
The announcement was made at Deloitte's largest annual leadership summit held in Shanghai on Thursday.
