Our history

Our history in the UK

A F (Fred) Stoy founded the firm in 1903 as Stoy & Co and was joined in 1919 by R J (Jack) Hayward. After the Second World War, the firm developed a client base drawn from a number of emerging industries, most notably retail and property. Relocating to the West End to be amongst its new client base, Stoy Hayward & Co established itself as the accountant of choice for emerging and aspirational businesses.

The firm became known as Stoy Hayward in 1988 and in July 1992 it merged with another medium-sized firm of chartered accountants, Finnie & Co. In 1994, the firm extended its national network through a union with thirteen BDO Binder Hamlyn offices, changed its name to BDO Stoy Hayward and applied successfully to become the UK member firm of BDO International.

In 2002, we achieved our goal of becoming a single national partnership with an associated but separate and independent firm in Northern Ireland. Converting to LLP status in 2004, we now have greater protection for the business and greater transparency to clients.

From 1st October 2009, BDO Stoy Hayward became known as ‘BDO’. This formed part of a global initiative that resulted in all BDO Member Firms in 110 countries worldwide adopting the single trading name of ‘BDO’ by 1 January 2010.

The history of the BDO international network

BDO’s distinctive reputation for client proximity is built upon our commitment to all our stakeholders that what matters to them matters to us. Our clients recognise us as their preferred adviser, appreciating our seamless service world wide.

Our story is one of continuously responding to ever changing client needs.

We were founded in 1963 when firms from the UK, Netherlands, Germany, US and Canada joined forces to share and expand their knowledge to better support clients. We were known as Binder Seidman International Group until 1973, when we adopted the name Binder Dijker Otte & Co: BDO.

We continued to build our international capabilities, growing the strong local roots that mean we now provide services to our clients in 110 countries. In 1988, we established a world wide structure and the BDO acronym was placed before each local member firm’s name. This, together with the introduction of a new logo and a consistent global brand, clearly demonstrated that the local expertise of our member firms was combined with the international expertise and strength of our international network.

Since then, our network has continued to transform in response to client needs, culminating in the change of our name in 2009 to simply BDO. Our move to a single global trading name demonstrates our commitment to service our clients and to compete successfully in our market on a multinational basis.

BDO is the world’s fifth largest accounting network. We have an excellent partner to staff ratio, with 44,000 people working with our clients and offering challenging, ethical and practical advice from 1,095 offices in 110 countries.

Our commitment to knowledge and best practice sharing means that expertise is easily shared across the network. Our common methodologies and IT platform ensure effective and efficient service delivery to all our clients. To maintain standards we have a robust accreditation process and quality assurance review procedure.

We remain focused on helping our clients navigate ever-changing economic and market conditions by providing high quality advice and service to all our clients on a consistent basis.  This will enable us to achieve our ambition to significantly increase our market share and ensure that we are recognised in the market as a unified global network.