Big Four auditors
The
Big Four are a group of international
accountancy firms that handle the vast majority of audits for publicly traded corporations. Before the collapse of
Arthur Andersen in
2002, the auditors were known as the
Big Five auditors.
As of 2004, the Big Four firms are:
- Deloitte (previously Deloitte & Touche, formed by merger of Touche Ross and Deloitte Haskins & Sells)
- Ernst & Young (formed by merger of Ernst & Ernst and Arthur Young)
- KPMG (formed by merger of Peat Marwick International and KMG group)
- PricewaterhouseCoopers (formed by merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand)
The term descends via
Big Six from
Big Eight, the ancestor firms noted above apart from KMG having been numbered among the eight. The term
Big Eight was coined in the
1980s to reflect the international dominance of the eight largest accounting firms. The Big Eight source their origins to mergers of regional accounting firms in the
1970s and preceding decades. The original Big Eight as coined in 1980s were:
- Arthur Andersen
- Arthur Young
- Coopers & Lybrand
- Ernst & Whinney
- Deloitte, Haskins & Sells
- Peat Marwick International
- Price Waterhouse
- Touche Ross
The Big Eight became the Big Six in
1989 when Ernst & Whinney merged with Arthur Young to form
Ernst & Young in
June, and Deloitte, Haskins & Sells merged with Touche Ross to form
Deloitte & Touche in
August. The Big Six became the Big Five in July
1998 when Price Waterhouse merged with Coopers & Lybrand to form
PricewaterhouseCoopers. In the wake of the
2001 Enron scandal, Arthur Andersen was effectively removed as one of the Big Five, reducing the Big Five to the Big Four.
External links
- http://www.big5friends.com/
- http://www.bigfivetalent.com/
- http://www.exbigfive.com/
- http://www.financedirector.com/bigfive/
- http://raw.rutgers.edu/raw/internet/big5.htm Rutgers Accounting Web chart of links to Big Five accounting firms