FRENCH Duncan, the Scottish accountancy firm which employs more than 200 people and can trace its history back more than 100 years, has been acquired by fast-expanding Aberdeen firm AAB.
The deal is the biggest acquisition to date for AAB, which declined to disclose the price paid.
French Duncan, which has offices in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stirling, is focused on providing accountancy and business service solutions to support small and medium sized enterprises and individuals.
AAB noted the acquisition introduces more than 50 leisure and hospitality finance specialists, who provide bespoke hotel accounting services to clients across the UK, to the group.
It said the deal brings the headcount of its team in central Scotland to more than 350, “further strengthening the team to deliver client-focused services to businesses and individuals across a key growth region for the AAB group”.
AAB added: “The addition of French Duncan will build on the existing AAB Group specialist teams in audit, tax, business advisory, corporate finance and payroll/HR, including health and safety, and doubles the size of the AAB restructuring and recovery team across the UK and Ireland."
It noted that, since securing investment from August Equity in October 2021, it had been “on a strategic growth journey” with French Duncan the eighth business to join the group in the past 18 months.
Graeme Allan, chief executive at AAB Group, said: “This is our largest strategic acquisition to date and significantly strengthens our market position in Scotland. We are truly delighted to welcome the French Duncan team to AAB. We share a passion for supporting clients to achieve their goals...and I know our teams will be able to provide an even better service to our clients as a result of this deal.”
Graeme Finnie, managing partner of French Duncan, said: “This deal is a superb next step for the French Duncan team. We have admired the journey AAB has been on and by joining the group ourselves we will create unmatched opportunities for our teams and our clients through enhanced technology, investment and expertise.”
From today, French Duncan will begin trading as AAB.
Graeme Finnie will take on the role of managing partner in Glasgow for AAB following the deal.
AAB now employs more than 1,000 people across the UK, Ireland and overseas.
It said: “The rapid growth journey is expected to continue across the UK and Ireland in 2023.”
🔴 Save on a full year of digital access with our lowest EVER offer.
Subscribe for the whole year to The Herald for only £24 for unlimited website access or £30 for our digital pack.
This is only available for a limited time so don't miss out.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel