BDO UK and BDO Ireland are on track to complete their merger this weekend, with the combined firm planning to double the size of its workforce in the Republic to more than 1,100 over the next five years, according to senior partners.The merger, which becomes effective as of July 4th, brings together BDO Ireland’s offices in Dublin and Limerick with BDO UK’s existing 17 locations. It creates an international business with revenues of nearly €1.26 billion, with 8,500 staff and approximately 500 partners. It will also allow the Irish organisation to achieve its growth target of doubling in size over the next five years, while increasing its number of partners from 43 to 70, the firms said in a joint statement on Thursday. Mark Shaw, UK managing partner, will continue in that role in the enlarged organisation, and Brian McEnery will continue as regional managing partner in Ireland.McEnery told The Irish Times that the deal will give the Irish part of the business access to a “deeper and broader range of service offerings” and increase spending in technology as the firm and its clients increasingly seek to use artificial intelligence (AI). Scott Knight, head of growth, strategy and international with BDO UK, said that the aim is for the merged group to also do deals with other parts of the BDO network, which is encouraging regional clustering. However, he said that there is “nothing significantly advanced” at this stage. The combined firm sees a significant opportunities to grow revenues in Ireland in risk advisory, digital transformation consulting, audit in financial services and global taxation advice, according to Knight. BDO Ireland posted €75.3 million of revenues for its latest financial year to the end of February, according to its latest annual transparency report, published recently on its website. That falls short of an ambition outlined by McEnery in an interview with The Irish Times in 2023 that he planned to grow the firm into a business generating around €100 million by the end of his original term to the end of his initial three-year term in February. However, the firm’s sale of a digital consulting business at the start of the financial year was a driver of a revenue decline from €85.3 million for the previous year. McEnery also indicated that some of his original growth plans – including the opening of a full-service office in Cork – had been put on the back burner as the firm prioritised the merger of the Irish practiced with the UK. While professional services firms globally have scaled back graduate and entry-level hiring in recent years due to AI, McEnery said that BDO Ireland’s has remained steady, and actually rose slightly last year to between 65 and 70.