Brazil3E Accounting International network reaches 60 member milestone
Singapore-founded professional services network 3E Accounting International has reached the milestone of 60 members worldwide – becoming the largest such homegrown network of its kind.
Founded in Singapore in just 2011, homegrown accounting and advisory network 3E Accounting International has cracked the 60-mark of country member firms, achieving the milestone with the addition of outlets in Bulgaria and Nigeria in the first half of the year. The network now has a combined headcount exceeding 1,300 staff, spread across 90 offices on every continent, including in more than two dozen locations across greater Asia.
Describing itself as a one-stop solution for all businesses in Singapore and globally, the professional services network offers lines in audit and accounting, taxation, advisory, human resources, corporate secretarial, and business process outsourcing among many other areas, including, notably, company incorporation services – drawing on its own growth success to help other companies with their international expansion agendas.
3E’s own ambitious international drive began just five years ago with the Singapore-based network establishing an office in neighbouring Malaysia, before two years later embarking on its global journey with the addition of a member in Cyprus as its first beyond Asia. And the firm isn’t finished just yet, with 3E currently exploring opportunities in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – “due to their unique geographic location and access to the Baltic Sea”.
Despite its pace, the expansion has been far from slapdash. “3E Accounting International only admits one network firm for every country,” explained founder Lawrence Chai. “Our global headquarters in Singapore conducts detailed and rigorous due diligence on prospective firms before we establish a strategic partnership agreement to admit the firm as a network member. This ensures that our clients receive the highest quality service from the network members.”
Remarkably, Chai established 3E Accounting at the age of just 26, having kicked off his career at an affiliate of Baker Tilly in Malaysia. A member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA), Chai would later serve as an auditor at LTC, a Singapore affiliate of another global accounting network – BKR International – before ultimately setting up on his own. “We started everything from scratch,” Chai said in an interview with Wealth & Finance International magazine. “It might sound incredible that a small firm started in 2011 with two staff and limited clients would have penetrated the market at such an incredibly fast rate – yet, we did it!”
Underpinned by the core values of “efficiency, effectiveness and economy” (hence 3E), the firm credits some of its success to Singapore’s supportive business environment and multitude of Free Trade Agreements with the world’s major economies, having helped to incorporate numerous in- and out-bound companies since its inception and (among other recognitions) picking up a Singapore Brand Awards title for Best Company Registration Specialist along the way.
