Failings in expecting economic recovery in global markets and high levels of investment have seen global accounting company KPMG report reduced annual profits.

Falling profits has seen the accountant firm make 250 redundancies over the summer months.

The company blamed the fall in profits on maintain a large workforce for too long, with "KPMG's senior UK partner Simon Collins said: "Our profitability fell because of investment and because we maintained high staff levels in some areas of our business in anticipation of a wider economic recovery”.