Ritchie Tout joins as Tax Partner from Mazars and Paul Haley is promoted to Partner and Head of Internal Audit for the West

Azets, the UK’s largest regional accountancy firm and business advisor to SMEs, has appointed Ritchie Tout as Tax Partner in the South Wales area and promoted Paul Haley to Partner and Head of Internal Audit for the West.

Newly appointed Tax Partner, Ritchie Tout, trained in a Big Four firm with a portfolio including personal, corporate and professional partnership clients. After qualifying as a Chartered Tax Adviser, he spent 15 years at PwC as part of the management taxes team. Most recently he was a Director at Mazars, where he spent six years specialising in merger and acquisition tax work and employee incentive plans.

Ritchie has experience across private and listed companies, venture capital and private equity backed businesses, as well as subsidiaries of non-UK companies, and joins Azets to offer broad tax support to local businesses and to provide specialist advice around all types of share-related transactions.

Previously Director of Audit & Assurance for Wales and the South West, Paul Haley joined Azets in April 2021, and leads the internal audit services. Since joining the firm, Paul has led the internal audit team to grow the service line, as well as increasing the regional presence of the business. He now holds the position of Partner and Head of Internal Audit for the West and will continue his role of growing the client base, and making up part of the senior leadership team.

Richard Goddard, Partner at Azets South Wales commented: “It’s with great pleasure to announce the promotion of Paul, and the appointment of Ritchie to our growing team in South Wales. Paul’s ambition to grow the already strong internal audit credentials has shown, and this promotion marks his dedication to the business, in a variety of capacities.

Ritchie brings a wealth of experience in a variety of sectors and his professional knowledge is a huge asset to our team. He’ll be leading on a number of accounts in the tax division, and also sit within the senior leadership team.”

Ritchie is the current chair of the South Wales branch of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) and Vice Chair of the CIOT’s Welsh Taxes technical sub-committee. He also edits Croner-i’s on-line tax valuation material.

Azets is a top 10 accountancy firm and focuses on delivering a highly personalised service, though a local office network and proprietary digital workplace technology. Career opportunities are available at Azets, visit www.azets.co.uk to find out more