Moore Stephens Australia today announced the admission of Ascent Audit and Governance Services (Ascent) in Canberra as its newest member firm, Moore Stephens Canberra, effective Wednesday, 10 March 2010.


The addition of Ascent, currently a member of the Bentleys network, to the Moore Stephens network follows the admission of PKF Southport as Moore Stephens Gold Coast on Tuesday 1 December 2009 and the merger of the former Horwath South Australia with the audit division of Moore Stephens’ previous Adelaide member firm to form the new Moore Stephens Adelaide on 2 November 2009.


Ascent is a highly regarded, high quality audit and governance firm in Canberra with excellent Federal Government contacts, networks and contracts. Ascent is a five partner firm that offers external audit, internal audit, risk management and financial consulting services.

Mr Adrian Kelly, Ascent’s Managing Partner, said his firm and Moore Stephens shared a vision for the future. “We have benefited from our association with Bentleys over the years,” Mr Kelly said, “but our firm is now looking to build on our core strengths of external audit, internal audit and risk management, and Moore Stephens is stronger in these areas and is investing in them for the future.

“We feel our future lies with Moore Stephens which has the size and infrastructure that supports the challenges facing our assurance clients,” Mr Kelly added.

“There is also considerable appeal in Moore Stephens’ very strong and cohesive Australian and international network which will open up exciting opportunities for our clients and our people,” Mr Kelly said.

Mr Stephen Humphrys, Chairman of Moore Stephens Australia, said securing a firm in Canberra has been a strategic priority for Moore Stephens for some time. “Canberra has been a target location for us for a long time,” Mr Humphrys said. “A lot of work has gone in to securing a truly great firm in a market that is strategically very important for us.

“Not only does Ascent bring to the network outstanding technical skills, knowledge and experience, but having a highly regarded and well connected member firm in Canberra opens up the critically important government market for the rest of the network.

“We have worked hard to build a network of like-minded firms committed to success by delivering quality work for quality clients, but not at the expense of the quality of life of our partners and staff,” he added. “We also aim to deliver to our member firms appropriate, high quality centralised resources with a conservative cost structure designed to deliver maximum value.

“The admission now of a Bentleys firm, a PKF firm, and a Horwath firm says to me that we are getting the balance right and building a genuine, truly great mid-tier network.”