EY’s Strategy and Transactions practice takes shape amid evolution across the entire firm

A full breadth of services to tackle fundamental capital deployment questions

Setting the stage for EY’s shift from Transaction Advisory Services to Strategy and Transactions, Nadine Mirchandani, deputy global vice chair of Strategy and Transactions at EY, and team noted that as COVID-19 has served as an accelerant to disruptive trends across technology, macroeconomics and even geopolitics, enterprises still struggle with fundamental questions around deploying capital, from acquisitions and mergers to corporate finance and core strategy. While EY has an established track record for working with clients on these issues, the newly formed Strategy and Transactions practice will help the firm build capabilities at scale, allowing EY to better address the full range of facets impacting clients and provide them long-term value, according to Mirchandani. Under the umbrella of Connected Capital Solutions, the firm has developed five distinct service offerings around Strategy, Corporate Finance, Buy and Integrate, Sell and Separate, and Reshaping Results, intended to be both stand-alone offerings and gateways to the rest of the firm’s service lines, such as Tax and Consulting, including technology transformation. In TBR’s view, explicitly delineating between the various challenges of capital deployment, such as separating acquisitions and integration from divestitures, provides clients with clear insight into the breadth of EY’s offerings without diluting the firm’s depth of expertise. 

Filling out the new organizational structure, Julie Hood, EY Strategy and Transactions leader for Europe Middle East, India and Africa, and Tony Qui, Global Innovation Leader who is responsible for innovation strategic direction within the Strategy and Transactions practice, explained that Strategy & Transactions includes three newly created sub-service lines — Transactions & Corporate Finance; EY-Parthenon; and International Tax and Transaction Services (ITTS) — and provided a few details on each:

• Transaction Diligence, within Transactions & Corporate Finance, is, according to Hood, the “cornerstone” of EY’s practice and where the firm has established the longest and most substantial client relationships.
• EY-Parthenon, which offers services around strategy consulting, transaction strategy & execution, and turnaround & restructuring strategy, intends to compete directly with EY’s Big Four peers and the leading strategy-centric consultancies, such as McKinsey & Co., Bain & Co. and Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Jim Hsu said EY-Parthenon combines on-the-ground staff — who have multiple touch points with clients locally — with resources across the entire firm such as tax and risk. Hsu added that EY’s clients seek a “holistic approach” to their capital deployment issues, which plays to EY’s strengths in working both globally and across the entire firm.
• Transfer Pricing, by its inclusion as a component of ITTS, illustrates the firm’s commitment to bringing both industry expertise and technical craft to engagements.

Effective July 1, EY rebranded its Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) as Strategy and Transactions (S&T) and moved the EY-Parthenon group into the new S&T practice. In mid-August, EY leadership, including Nadine Mirchandani, deputy global vice chair, Strategy and Transactions at EY; Julie Hood, EY Strategy and Transactions leader for Europe Middle East, India and Africa; Jim Hsu, Global Strategy lead at EY-Parthenon; and Tony Qui, Global Innovation leader for EY’s Strategy and Transactions practice, briefed TBR on the changes and expectations for the newly formed practice and new service lines and the firm as a whole. This special report reflects both that discussion and TBR’s ongoing analysis of EY.