£2.9m package makes Deloitte's Connolly UK's best-paid accountant

John Connolly, the chief executive of Deloitte & Touche, was awarded a total salary and profit-share package of £2.9m last year according to the group's first annual report as a limited liability partnership.

John Connolly, the chief executive of Deloitte & Touche, was awarded a total salary and profit-share package of £2.9m last year according to the group's first annual report as a limited liability partnership.

The package consolidates Mr Connolly's position as the UK's highest earning accountant.

A strong year for the UK firm meant that its 602 partners saw the value of their share of the company's annual profit grow by 15 per cent to an average of £621,000 per partner.

Mr Connolly, who was officially reprimanded by the industry's watchdog earlier this year for his role in the Barlow Clowes savings scandal, saw his share of the profits slip from £3.2m in 2003. His share included a £1.4m contribution from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, the global firm, down from £1.6m the previous year.

Deloitte UK will today report a 15.5 per cent rise in profits for the year to 31 May to £374m on revenues that increased 5 per cent to £1.23bn.

The group, which subsumed the British operations of the disgraced accountancy firm Arthur Andersen in 2002, said revenues from its audit, tax and corporate finance work had all risen. Only its consulting revenues declined, the firm revealed.

Mr Connolly said the results represented a "satisfactory performance given tough trading conditions". He said the firm had benefited from the rise in "multi-service engagements" that it had won over the past 12 months.

He said activity across its four core business streams had "held up well", singling out corporate finance and tax as particularly strong divisions.

"Our consulting practice, while still emerging from shrinking markets, is beginning to benefit from greater business opportunities and a small upturn in the market," he added, predicting the division's profits would start growing again this year. "With some improvement expected in the economic outlook and transaction activity in the current year, we are confident that we will continue to make good progress."

Mr Connolly was criticised by the accountancy profession's Joint Disciplinary Scheme for his accountancy work related to Barlow Clowes, the investment group that cost the Government £150m in compensation to thousands of mainly elderly savers when it collapsed in 1988. Mr Connolly, who faced calls for his resignation when his involvement was revealed earlier this year, said it was not a cause for concern for anyone at Deloitte.