The strongest performing service line across the 165 independent member firms was consultancy, up 17% to just over £1bn, followed by taxation, up 7% to $945m. Audit reported the largest revenues at $1.3bn, but the smallest increase at 2%.

The fastest growing region was Latin America, up 16% with revenues of $101m. Asia Pacific  rose 13% to $850m,EMEA by 7% to $1.27bn and North America by 4% to $1.6bn.

Geoff Barnes, Baker Tilly International CEO and president said: ‘This represents our strongest revenue growth since 2008. We have seen growth across all our four regions and all service lines.

‘Mergers and acquisitions are an important part of our members’ growth plans and we have seen an unprecedented number of mergers over the past year.

‘In addition to announcing mergers in the G20 economies of Russia, Australia, Germany, the US and the UK, we have also expanded our presence across Italy, the Caribbean and Africa. We will continue to see mergers between national firms continue as firms strive to reach critical mass and develop strategic aims that may not be achievable on their own.’

However, the UK has seen the loss of its largest member, Baker Tilly LLP, which resigned from the network in 2014 and joined RSM International (2014-15 fee income: $4.64bn); the UK firm also recently rebranded under the RSM name in the UK and now trades as RSM.

Baker Tilly International is currently represented in 141 countries with 28,000 people in 745 offices worldwide.  The network was ranked tenth in the Accountancy Top 25 Networks league table for fee income in 2015.