Partner compensation

BDO has salary partners and equity partners. The salary partners are employed in BDO and compensated for their work in the form of salary and performance-based bonus. Equity partners are participants in BDO’s Internal partnership and are compensated by being entitled to a share of the profit.

Profits are distributed to the partners annually, and the remuneration is determined locally in the respective profit centres. The local compensation models must be approved by the company’s board of directors. The models are performance-based whereby an individual’s effort and contributions are assessed. Quality is a key parameter in the evaluation process, and a specific assessment is made of each equity partner when considering quality in the compensation process. Non-performance with respect to quality may result in reduced compensation, which was the case at the 2021 distribution. For salary partners, such non-compliance with regard to quality will affect the size of the bonus and can imply that no bonus is paid.

The compensation models also include each partner’s contributions to developing employees, the client portfolio and the business in general. The compensation models do not reward sales from other service areas to audit clients. The final remuneration to equity partners consists of remuneration for work and profit share.