Boom time for insolvency accountants

One of the unfortunate consequences of the Irish economy remaining in the doldrums last year was a massively increased rate of insolvency among businesses in the country. Sadly, this doesn't look like abating in 2010, but the upside of this is increased job opportunities for accountants with expertise in this area.

According to data compiled by InsolvencyJournal.ie, 1,406 Irish firms were declared insolvent in 2009, which represents an 82% upswing on 2009.

Ken Fennell, from accountancy firm Kavanagh Fennell, says that a similar figure is likely in the coming year.

"The outlook remains pessimistic as the rate of insolvency will be similar to 2009, with a peak mid-year followed by a gradual reduction in the last quarter of 2010," he said.

But, of course, this represents an ongoing boom period for accountancy firms with corporate recovery and insolvency practices.

Ken Harbourne, country manager for financial recruiters Robert Half in Ireland, says that overriding problems at Big Four and smaller practice firms mean people have so far been transferred to insolvency roles from other areas of the business to prevent redundancies.

"A lot of corporate finance experts have been re-trained and transferred across to insolvency," he says. "However, these teams still have hugely increased workloads, and there's an increasing need to recruit externally to deal with this now."

Recruiters in Ireland tell us that Big Four firms are beginning to slowly build their corporate recovery teams, but that the majority of hiring is taking place at mid-tier firms who don't have adequate supplies of people to transfer from other business areas.

Senior corporate recovery roles pay between €75-95k.