BDO re-enters India for 3rd time; ropes in MZSK & Associates

The world's fifth largest auditing and accounting firm BDO International, which has just re-entered the country for the third time by roping in MZSK & Associates as its new partner, is bullish about the market and plans to nearly treble head-count to around 1,200 over the next six months.

After this association, the city-based MZSK & Associates will be known as BDO India and will be headed by Milind Kothari as managing partner.

Kothari told PTI that the formal association was inked in the last week of September.

"Currently, our head-count is close to 450, with 32 partners. Over the next six months, our head-count will be around 1,200. We are also looking at mergers, especially in the South, for this," Kothari told PTI over the weekend.

It can be recalled that the Belgium-based over USD 6 billion auditing and accounting firm had called off its

four-year-old association with Haribhakti Consulting last December following differences between the two and sold 10 per cent of its stake to the city-based firm.

MZSK & Associates is the third partner for BDO here as its first partner was the Kolkata-based Lodha & Co, owned by late R S Lodha, with which it had broken off in 2008.

BDO, which takes its name from three of its founding members- Binder Hamlyn of Britain, Dijker & Co of Holland and Germany's Otte & Co, offers risk and advisory services, tax, regulatory and global knowledge services in 144 countries and employs 55,000 as of 2012.

Kothari said currently the company has offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad, Gurgaon and Aurangabad, and its offices in Bangalore and Chennai will be opened in the next two-three months.

MZSK & Associates was formed after merging two Mumbai and Pune-based firms in 2011. (