MHA has today publicly listed after raising £98m and has a market cap of £271m after the board unanimously decided to pursue the IPO as the firm wanted to ‘retain significant control’, said MHA CEO, Rakesh Shaunak.

Shaunak took the time to speak to Business & Accountancy Daily this morning, who shared his excitement and reasoning for not heading down the private equity route, like many of the firm’s competitors.

Shaunak said: ‘Private equity has been so rampant in the profession, so the reason we decided IPO rather than PE was control, we wanted to retain significant control. External investment and listing is 35%, 55% retained by the partners and we felt like retention and control, and being able to do things at our own pace was much more important than anything else.

‘For us the IPO option was a fairly easy one, we had a lot of PE interest, and you know, it’s not a case of not being attractive to PE, but quite the opposite. At the end of the day the money side of things wasn’t the primary driver for us, we wanted a tradeable currency which IPO gives us, and we can work at our own pace, we can acquire at our own pace and continue to run a very successful business.’

The firm has a goal to reach a revenue of £500m within 3-5 years, but ‘we’d like to get there sooner’, said Shaunak. A revenue of £500m would propel the firm comfortably into the top 10, placing it between RSM who recorded a fee income of £522m in 2024, and Azets, with an income of £405m.

However, it is not just MHA that intends on growing and entering the top 10 as private equity backed groups such as Sumer bolstered its way to 13th last year, just above MHA’s current position.

Shaunak believes MHA will still succeed despite tough competition though. He said: ‘We are very different in our Baker Tilly incarnation, in that we are a very joined up global network operating as a single firm virtually, I think that is a big differentiator and being on the board is a big advantage.’

Shaunak is adamant the different dynamics at MHA will be the key to success and overtaking competitors that may be backed by private equity.

In terms of the firm’s plan to move forward, further mergers and acquisitions are at the forefront. As well as having overseas targets and an ambition to grow further in Europe, MHA will also be expanding within the UK in the near future.

Shaunak said: ‘We believe in creating a firm that is a European firm rather than just a UK one, and on the latter, we have targets in mind in the UK as well to being key geographic locations where we feel we would be quite a different offering to the market.’

Sharing more details on these key locations Shaunak said the firm intends on expanding further into Scotland, opening a branch in Glasgow. The firm is already in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, but Shaunak said, ‘we see Glasgow as completing that virtuous triangle’.

As well as Glasgow, Shaunak said the firm intends to expand to the north east and south west of the country as ‘there are good pickings there, and our brand, our offering is quite different, we think it will bring something new to the market and therefore enable us to grow in these markets’.

On top of expanding its footprint in the UK and Europe the firm plans on investing around £5m into artificial intelligence after the backing which will go towards data analytics and streamlining more tedious tasks. ‘It will have a big part to play going forward in terms of what we do and how we do it, and so certainly we’ve embarked on that journey’, said Shaunak, adding ‘we can revolutionise the way we deliver services to our clients’.

Shaunak continued: ‘The collection of data is automatic now isn’t it, we drown in data, so that’s gone away. Analysing data means we can get more messages and be able to do more advisory work and added value work, we want to use the tech spend to do higher level things, not just the basics.’

Despite this Shaunak does not believe this will result in a reduction in graduate positions, but in fact broaden the scope of potential recruits. The CEO said the firm is ‘repurposing our requirements’ when it comes to recruiting graduates.

Shaunak said: ‘The traditional route of taking on x100 trainees straight from university has changed, it will still be x100, but it may be people who have done an IT degree or something different, who want to pursue a career in the accounting profession.’ He added that the scope of recruits has changed widely from that of two years ago.

The listing began at 8am on 15 April, with the company’s ordinary shares going live for 1p each. So far it is has received support from institutional investors and raised £95.8m, with the retail offer raising £2.2m.

The market capitalisation of the company will be approximately £271m with 271,211,764 ordinary shares in issue and a free float of approximately 36.1%.

MHA sets £269m valuation and float date | 9 Apr 2025

MHA plans AIM float in £125m capital raise | 17 Mar 2025

Photography credit: Layton Thompson