Azets in York has appointed Alain de Braekeleer as a financial services audit partner.

Alain has spent 20 years in FS audit practice at KPMG, including leading many Financial Statement and Client Money (CASS) audits as well as providing a variety of non-audit services to clients.

Alain has experience across a wide array of FS firms and he has supported and worked with companies and groups of all shapes and sizes.

His appointment comes as Azets’ audit business continues to grow in Yorkshire and York where its office is in Monks Cross Drive.

Russell Turner, regional managing director for Yorkshire, said: “We’re very pleased to welcome Alain to Azets.“He brings exceptional experience and expertise in the highly-specialist, sophisticated and exacting FS audit space which will allow us to bring this new service to clients across the north.

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“This will complement both our existing audit and assurance offering in the region and our well-established and successful FS audit services in London and the south east.”

Chris Butt, head of audit for Yorkshire, said: “Azets has recorded multiple years of double-digit organic growth across our audit business.

“Alain is a strong and strategic hire with an excellent reputation whose appointment represents an investment in the future of the company.

“It is an opportunity to widen our client base and build a new business arm from the ground up across the region.”

Alain de Braekeleer, financial services audit partner, said: “I’m thrilled to be joining Azets at such an exciting time in its growth and look forward to supporting many of the varied companies that make up the thriving Financial Services sector in York.”

Alain will support clients in asset management, asset finance and fintech as well as a range of other types of financial services firms.

The FS sector contributes £278bn to the UK economy and supports nearly 2.5m jobs with 1.1m in FS and 1.3m in related professional services – according to HM Treasury and the City of London’s latest State of the Sector report. It contributes more than £100bn in tax revenue.

According to the Department for Business & Trade, the north of England has one of the largest concentrations of financial and business services in Europe.

Azets is a top 10 UK accountancy and business advisory firm and the largest regional business advisor to SMEs in the UK, delivering accounting, tax, audit, business and advisory services in the UK and internationally.

Azets has 335 staff in its Yorkshire offices in Leeds, Bradford and York.