Accountants' merger fails to add up

THE PROPOSED merger between two of the UK's leading accountancy firms, Robson Rhodes and Pannel Kerr Forster, has been unexpectedly scrapped just a week before completion due to "irreconcilable differences."

The firms say the merger was on course for its 1 May launch in the UK, where the deal originated, but that their overseas branches rejected it. Robson Rhodes' French partners, where the firm has a large national practice, were understood to be strongly opposed to joining PKF, which they thought lacked a truly national presence in the UK.