Cyprus firms top European CEO magazine awards

Four business and legal advisory firms in Cyprus were among the 50 recipients of European CEO magazine’s first annual awards that “recognise the organisations which represent the very highest standards of service, innovation and competence in their respective field.”
Organisations from across Europe and the world have been recognised, all from diverse and varied industry sectors, including finance, law, automotive fleet services and business travel and tourism. The one thing that unites them all is that they have achieved the top levels of service in their areas of expertise, the magazine’s editor noted.
Tax services is a primary sector which European CEO regarded as essential to the business world. In this field, excellence was almost a three horse race with PricewaterhouseCoopers gaining recognition in Luxembourg, Cyprus, India and Switzerland and Ernst & Young and Deloitte not far behind.
For every company, winning the award is a success story. With such steep competition in every sector, it’s a real accolade being recognised for these achievements. However, there are some companies for whom the competition has been overwhelming, while companies which were originally set up to target a specific sector were honoured for becoming the authority and hugely successful within their niche.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Cyprus was one of the five award winners as Best Tax Team of the Year. The four other recipients in the same category were PricewaterhouseCoopers Luxembourg S.A.R.L., Deloitte Belgium, Ernst & Young Russia and Ernst & Young Ukraine.
“Our tax service has experienced substantial growth during the last year continuing the impressive pace of expansion of the last few years. The revenue growth for 2008 was 33% (compared to 25% in 2007) whilst over the last five years the members of the tax services team have tripled, becoming the leading tax practice on the island with 12 tax partners and more than 100 tax professionals,” said a spokesperson for the Tax Services Department of PricewaterhouseCoopers Cyprus.
PwC firms picked up three more awards – Best Tax Planning Team of the Year (India and Switzerland) and Best Transfer Pricing Team of the Year (Finland). Deloitte network members in Italy won two more awards – Best Business Tax Advisory of the Year and Best Transfer Pricing Team of the Year – while Ernst & Young added two more to their trophies – Best Tax Team of the Year (Norway) and Best Tax Team of the Year (Chile). KPMG Netherlands also picked up an award for Best Tax Team of the Year.
Among the Cypriot firms, Areti Charidemou & Associates won the award for Best Corporate and Commercial Team, Chryssafinis & Polyviou for Best Banking & Finance Team of the Year and Chrysses Demetriades & Co. for Best M&A Team of the Year.
Despite aspiring to become a leading tourist destination with the tourism services sector among the biggest income earners for Cyprus, it did not qualify for any of the awards in this category. Instead, South Africa sweeped all the awards for Tourist Board of the Year, Convention Centre of the Year (Cape Town International Convention Centre) and Regional Tourism Bureau of the Year (Cape Town Routes Unlimited), while the Lebua at State Tower in Bangkok was declared the World’s Best Business Hotel.