Mid-tier accountancy firm BDO has suffered a 5% decline in national turnover, a result its managing partner Simon Michaels said reflects current economic conditions. 'If you look at the global economy, we've seen a downturn of a scale that we are unlikely to see again in our professional careers. Our profession wasn't going to be immune to that and neither were our businesses and clients,' Michaels said. Turnover was down £18m to £335.1m for the year ending 3 July 2009. Pre-tax profits fell by 9.7% to £58.7m from £65m last year. Audit, still the firm's biggest revenue stream, was down £7.8m from 2008 to £99.1m. BDO is the only non-Big Four firm to audit a FTSE 100 company - Randgold Resources. Tax, traditionally one of BDO's best performing service lines, suffered an 8% fall in revenues from £98m to £90.1m while corporate finance plummeted by 41% from £52.7m to £31.1m. Business restructuring had the strongest growth, with revenues leaping by 50% to £56.6m, up from £37.8m while forensics and investment management also showed moderate increases. 'What we saw in our business last year is overall revenues of £335m, which was a modest contraction against the previous year and that was largely as a result of lower levels of transactional work and other one-off assignments,' Michaels said. 'So inevitably that impacts those bits of the business that were operating in those market places.' This year has been a turbulent one for Michaels in his first year as managing partner. In June BDO shed 10% of partners as part of a restructuring programme. Last December it axed 250 jobs across all grades of its workforce. 'In terms of medium to long term, our plans haven't changed but we have had to adapt over the year and that's included us having to make some very difficult decisions,' he told Accountancy. Looking forward, Michaels said the firm is continuing to make more investment in the public sector, as well as expanding its presence in India and the Middle East and international outsourcing.