PricewaterhouseCoopers
The largest of the Big Four, PwC continues to dominate the UK's accountancy market
In 2007, PwC has cemented its pre-eminent position in the UK accountancy
market. Comfortably number one by all measures, PwC saw the income earned by its
793 partners reach £1.98bn in the year ended 30 June 2006. That’s £2.5m per
partner, a figure bettered only by Deloitte.
Created by a merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand in 1998,
PwC now operates 30 offices in all the major UK cities. Alongside that, its
global network now runs to more than 140,000 people in 149 countries. It’s
number one globally too, with its US and south Asian practices doing especially
Keiran Poynter, now rapidly reaching grandee status, heads up PwC in the UK.
The firm is especially strong in the consultancy areas, and has seen income from
that stream rise by 18% in the past year
PwC has an almost equal (51-49%) split between audit and non-audit work. the
firm boasts that it currently audits 45 of the FTSE100 according to
Financial Director, comfortably ahead of the competition. And ominously
for the rest, PwC continues to grow its non-audit practice – indeed it’s this
area that has accounted for most of the firm’s recent growth.
Its private company practice brought in over half a billion pounds of revenue
according to the latest annual report, while overseas equities coming to London
also make a serious contribution to PwC’s bottom line.
Tellingly, though, PwC has the worst record when it comes to the number of
female partners, at last count only 10%.