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PricewaterhouseCoopers

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PricewaterhouseCoopers
Type Limited Liability Partnership
Founded 1849, London (in 1998, firm took on current name)
Headquarters London, United Kingdom [1]
Area served
Key people Sam DiPiazza, CEO
Industry Professional Services
Products Assurance
Consulting
Financial advisory
Tax
Revenue $28.2 Billion USD (2008) [2]
Employees 155,693[3]
Website www.pwc.com
A former PwC office building (Southwark Towers) in London, England.
The PW logo before the 1998 merger
The C&L logo before the merger

PricewaterhouseCoopers (or PwC) is the world's largest professional services firm.[4] It was formed in 1998 from a merger between Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand, both formed in London.[5]

PricewaterhouseCoopers earned aggregated worldwide revenues of $28 billion[6] for fiscal 2008, and employed over 146,000 people[7] in 150 countries.[7]

In the United States, where it is the fifth largest privately owned organization, it operates as PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.[8]

PricewaterhouseCoopers is a Big Four auditor, alongside KPMG, Ernst & Young and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

Contents

[edit] History

The firm was created by the merger of two large firms Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand in 1998. These two firms each had histories dating back to the nineteenth century.

[edit] Price Waterhouse

Samuel Lowell Price, an accountant, started his practice in London in 1849.[9] In 1865 Price went into partnership with William Hopkins Holyland and Edwin Waterhouse. Holyland left shortly after to work alone in accountancy and the firm was known from 1874 as Price, Waterhouse & Co.[9] (The '& Co' and comma was dropped from the name much later.) The original partnership agreement, signed by Price, Holyland and Waterhouse could be found in Southwark Towers, one of PwC's important legacy offices (now under demolition) in London.

By the late nineteenth century, Price Waterhouse had gained significant recognition as an accounting firm. As a result of trade between the United Kingdom and the United States of America, Price Waterhouse opened an office in New York in 1890,[9] and the American firm itself soon expanded rapidly. The original British firm opened an office in Liverpool in 1904[9] and then elsewhere in the United Kingdom and countries abroad, each time establishing a separate partnership in each country: the worldwide practice of PW was therefore a federation of collaborating firms that had grown organically rather than being the result of an international merger.[9]

In a further effort to take advantage of economies of scale, PW and Arthur Andersen had discussed a merger in 1989[10] but the negotiations failed mainly because of conflicts of interest such as Andersen's strong commercial links with IBM and PW's audit of IBM.

[edit] Coopers & Lybrand

In 1854 William Cooper established his own practice in London, which became Cooper Brothers seven years later when his three brothers joined.[11]

In the USA in 1898, Robert H. Montgomery, William M. Lybrand, Adam A. Ross Jr. and his brother T. Edward Ross formed Lybrand, Ross Brothers and Montgomery.[5] Coopers & Lybrand is the result of a merger in 1957 between Cooper Brothers & Co; Lybrand, Ross Bros & Montgomery and a Canadian firm McDonald, Currie and Co.[5] In 1990 in certain countries including the UK Coopers & Lybrand merged with Deloitte Haskins & Sells to become Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte,[5] in 1992 renamed Coopers & Lybrand.[12]

[edit] The merger

In 1998, Price Waterhouse merged with Coopers & Lybrand to form PricewaterhouseCoopers in an attempt to gain a scale that would put the new firm in a different league.[13]

[edit] Recent history

By the late 1990s the firm had created a large professional consulting branch, as did other major accountancy firms, generating much of its fees. Management Consulting Services (MCS) was the fastest growing and often most profitable area of the practice, though it was cyclical. The major cause for growth in the Nineties was the implementation of complex integrated ERP systems such as SAP R/3 for multi-national companies.

However, PwC came under increasing pressure to avoid conflicts of interests by not providing consulting services to its audit clients. Since it audited a large proportion of the world's largest companies, this was beginning to limit its potential market. These conflicts were going to increase when additional services such as the outsourcing of ERP systems were offered. For these reasons, in 2000, Ernst & Young was the first of the Big Four to sell its consulting services, to Capgemini.[14]

PwC therefore planned to capitalize on MCS's rapid growth through its sale to Hewlett Packard (for a reported $17 billion) but negotiations broke down in 2000.[15]

PwC announced in May 2002 that its consulting activities would be spun off as an independent entity. An outside consultancy, Wolff Olins, was hired to create a brand image for the new entity, called "Monday". The firm's CEO, Greg Brenneman described the unusual name as "a real word, concise, recognizable, global and the right fit for a company that works hard to deliver results."[16] These plans were soon revised, however. In October 2002, PricewaterhouseCoopers sold the entire consultancy business to IBM for approximately $3.9 billion in cash and stock. PwC's consultancy business was absorbed into IBM Global Business Services, increasing the size and capabilities of IBM's growing consulting practice.[17]

[edit] Global structure

PricewaterhouseCoopers offices at Darling Park Tower 2 in Sydney, Australia.

The legal structure of a limited liability partnership is very different to that of a company, and as such the global firm is in fact a collection of member firms, that are run autonomously in their respective jurisdictions. The senior partners of member firms sit on a global board of partners and there is also an 'umbrella' organisation called PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, a UK[18]-based company which provides co-ordination. The current global CEO is Samuel DiPiazza.[19]. Dennis Nally, the current Chairman of the US firm, has been elected to replace him beginning in June 2009. [20]

[edit] Services

[edit] Global

PricewaterhouseCoopers has three main service lines:[21]

  • Assurance,
  • Tax, (international tax planning and compliance with local tax laws, human resourcing consulting transfer pricing)
  • Advisory - mainly consulting activities which covers Strategy, Performance Improvement, Transactions Services, Business Recovery Services, M&A and Crisis Management in a range of specialist areas such as accountancy and actuarial advisory.

PwC's service lines face the market in each country by broad industry specializations such as:

  • Consumer and Industrial Products and Service (CIPS),[22]
  • Financial Services (FS),[23]
  • Technology, Information, Communications and Entertainment (TICE),[24]
  • Infrastructure, Government and Utilities (IG&U)[25]

These sub-divisions may vary slightly in some territories.

[edit] Consulting activities

PwC has developed several broader consulting initiatives in the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) framework, including a global effort to assist corporations with outsourcing, as well as a global political risk assessment with the political risk advisory firm Eurasia Group.[26]

Advisory services offered by PwC also include two actuarial consultancy departments; Actuarial and Insurance Management Solutions (AIMS) and a sub branch of "Human Resource Services" (HRS). Actuarial covers mainly 4 areas: pensions, life insurance, non-life insurance and investments. AIMS deals with life and non-life insurance and investments while HRS deals mainly with pensions.[27]

PwC serves the U.S. Federal Government through their Washington Federal Practice (WFP). PwC has over 2000 professionals based in the Washington Metro Corridor.[28]

[edit] PwC Japan's Assurance (Audit) Service

The Kasumigaseki Building in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo houses PwC Japan Tax Services and PwC HRS. Assurance and advisory services are in Marunouchi, Tokyo.

The member firm PricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata (あらた監査法人 PricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata?) and a network firm Misuzu Audit Corporation (the former ChuoAoyama PricewaterhouseCoopers) (みすず監査法人 Misuzu Kansa Hōjin?) provided auditing services in Japan. Misuzu dissolved in July, 2007.

From 2000 to 2006, PwC's affiliate of assurance service in Japan was ChuoAoyama Audit Corporation (中央青山監査法人 Chūō-Aoyama Kansa Hōjin?). In May 2006, the Financial Services Agency suspended ChuoAoyama following a suspicious audit of cosmetics company Kanebo in which three of the firm's partners allegedly assisted with accounting fraud and boosted earnings for the company by about $1.9 billion over the course of five years. The accountants involved were reprimanded by the Tokyo District Court but escaped prison time after a judge deemed them to have played a "passive role" in the crime.[29]

Shortly after the suspension of ChuoAoyama, PwC acted quickly to stem any possible client attrition as a result of the scandal. It set up the PricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata, and some of ChuoAoyama's accountants (but most of the international divisions) moved to the new firm. ChuoAoyama resumed operations on September 1st under the Misuzu name. However, by this point the two firms combined had 30% fewer clients than did ChuoAoyama prior to its suspension.[30]

[edit] Major clients

Europe and North America account for about 81% of PwC's annual revenue,[6] with Europe alone accounting for 45%.[6] The firm's dominant practice, namely auditing, accounts for over 50% of PwC's revenue.[21]

As of March 2005, PricewaterhouseCoopers' audit clients included four of the 10 largest public companies in the United States (ExxonMobil, Ford Motor Company, ChevronTexaco and IBM). PwC also audits four of the 10 largest companies in the United Kingdom (GlaxoSmithKline, Royal Dutch Shell, Barclays and Lloyds TSB).

One client, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, gives PwC the unique distinction of having been (in various incarnations) the tabulator and certifier of votes for the Academy Awards since 1934.[31]

PwC audits 40 per cent of companies in the FTSE 100 Index[32] and 45 per cent of the Fortune 1000 energy companies.[33]

PricewaterhouseCoopers new Melbourne offices at Freshwater Place.

The following are PwC audit clients that are part of the FT Global 500 (2006), grouped by FT industry:

Aerospace & defence: Raytheon, United Technologies, L-3 Communications Corporation
Automobiles & parts: Goodyear,Toyota Motor, Volkswagen, Peugeot, Robert Bosch GmbH, Ford
Banks: Afghanistan International Bank, Askari Bank, Bank of AJK, Al Rahji Banking & Investment, Bank of America, Bank of China (Hong Kong), Bank of Ireland, Banco Itau, Banco Popular Español, Barclays, Crédit Agricole, BB&T, BNP Paribas, Banco Bradesco, Commerzbank, Dexia, DnB NOR, Firstrand Bank Limited, Fortis, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Lloyds TSB, Macquarie Bank, Riyad Bank, Sanpaolo IMI, Sberbank (Russia), SEB, Standard Bank, Westpac Banking Corporation
Beverages: Anheuser-Busch, Miller, SAB
Chemicals: Albemarle, Bayer, E.I. du Pont de Nemours, Praxair, Shin Etsu Chemical, Rohm & Haas
Electricity: RAO UES, Chubu Electric Power, FirstEnergy, Exelon, Unified Energy System, ATCO, AMEREN
Electronic & electrical equipment: Agilent Technologies, Kyocera, LG Philips LCD, Logitech
Fixed line telecommunications: BellSouth, BT Group, Etisalat, KPN, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk., Saudi Telecom, GrameenPhone - Bangladesh, Srilanka Telecom
Food & drug retailers: Krispy Kreme, Seven & I Holdings Co., Tesco
Food producers: Danone, Kellogg's, Kraft Foods, Unilever, Bunge
Gas, water & multiutilities: Centrica, E.ON, RWE, National Grid plc
General financial: American Express, Freddie Mac, Franklin Resources, Goldman Sachs, Nikko Cordial, SLM
General industrials: 3M, Honeywell International, Hutchison Whampoa
General retailers: eBay, GUS, Marks & Spencer, John Lewis Partnership
Healthcare equipment & services: Baxter International, HealthSouth Corporation, Medco Health Solutions, Medtronic, Zimmer Holdings, Southern Cross Healthcare
Household goods: Reckitt Benckiser
Industrial engineering: Caterpillar Inc., Volvo
Industrial metals: Alcan, Alcoa, Nippon Steel, Nucor, POSCO, Tenaris
Industrial transportation: Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., Deutsche Post
Insurance: Ace, American International Group, AMB Generali, AXA, Legal & General, Millea Holdings, Progressive Corporation, Protective Life Corporation, Prudential Financial, Standard Life, Swiss Re, Zurich Financial Services
Leisure goods: Nintendo
Media: CBS, Thomson, Viacom, Walt Disney, Pearson
Mining: Barrick Gold, Newmont Mining, Rio Tinto
Mobile telecommunications: Alltel, KDDI, MTN Group, Sonera, Telia, China Unicom,
Oil Marketing companies: Attock Petroleum Limited
Oil & gas producers: BG, Burlington Resources, Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, EnCana Corporation, Eni, Gazprom, Imperial Oil, Suncor Energy, Marathon Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, Shell Canada, Stuart Petroleum
Oil equipment & services: Schlumberger
Personal goods: Colgate-Palmolive, L'Oréal, Nike, Richemont
Pharmaceuticals & biotechnology: Bayer, Biogen Idec, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Genzyme, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi-Aventis, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Wyeth, Talecris Biotherapeutics Holdings Corp.
Retail: Abercrombie & Fitch
Software & computer services: IBM, Yahoo!, Satyam
Sports: Laureus World Sports Awards
Technology hardware & equipment: Cisco Systems, Corning Inc., Dell, EMC Corporation, Ericsson, Hon Hai Precision Industry, Nokia, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics
Tobacco: Altria, British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco, ITC, Philip Morris International
Travel & leisure: Carnival, Las Vegas Sands, SKYCITY Entertainment Group
Primary Industries: ABB Grain Limited Others: Sungi Development Co Limited

[edit] Name and branding

The firm's name arises out of the merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand in 1998.

[edit] Staff

Because PricewaterhouseCoopers' only product is the output of its employees, the firm has a competitive recruiting program. PricewaterhouseCoopers was recently included in Fortune magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For" list, coming in at number 58 in 2009.[34] In the UK the company has been voted number one in the Times Top 100 Graduate Employers for 5 consecutive years.[35] PricewaterhouseCoopers is one of the top 10 companies for working mothers.[36] In October 2008, PricewaterhouseCoopers was named one of "Canada's Top 100 Employers" by Mediacorp Canada Inc., and was featured in Maclean's newsmagazine. Later that month, PricewaterhouseCoopers was also named one of Greater Toronto's Top Employers, which was announced by the Toronto Star newspaper.[37] PricewaterhouseCoopers in Ireland was named as the winner of the Best Company to Work for in Ireland 2008 by the Great Place to Work Institute in their annual list of Ireland's top employers.[38]

[edit] Criticisms

[edit] Tyco settlement

In July 2007, PwC agreed to pay $225 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by shareholders of Tyco International Ltd. over a multibillion-dollar accounting fraud.[39]

[edit] Satyam case

Recently, PwC was criticised[40][41][42][43][44][45], along with the promoters of Satyam, an Indian IT firm listed on the NYSE, in a $1.5 billion fraud.[46] PwC has written a letter to the board of directors of Satyam that its audit may be rendered "inaccurate and unreliable" due to the disclosures made by Satyam's (ex) Chairman.[47] PwC's U.S. arm "was the reviewer for the U.S. filings for Satyam."[48] Consequently, lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. with PwC as a defendant.[49] Two PricewaterhouseCoopers partners, Srinivas Talluri and S. Gopalakrishnan, have been detained by the police in India for further questioning in connection with the fraud investigation at Satyam.[50][51]

[edit] Other punishments and criticisms

India's accounting standards agency ICAI is investigating partners of PwC for professional negligence[41] in the now-defunct Global Trust Bank Ltd. case of 2007. Like Satyam, Global Trust Bank was also based in Hyderabad. This led to Reserve Bank of India banning PwC from auditing any financial company for over a year.[52][53][54] PwC was also associated with the accounting scandal at DSQ Software[55] in India. In July 2006, PwC’s Japanese affiliate Chuo Aoyama was handed a two-month ban[41]. Following the Satyam scandal, the Mumbai-based Small Investor Grievances Association (SIGA) has requested the Indian stock market regulator SEBI to ban PwC permanently and seize its assets in India alleging few more scandals like "Ketan Parekh stock manipulations."[56]

[edit] Sponsorship

PricewaterhouseCoopers has been a sponsor of the Dutch football team.[57]

PricewaterhouseCoopers is also a sponsor of the PGA Tour's unofficial 5th major, The Players Championship, at TPC Sawgrass. [58]

[edit] Notable current and former employees

[edit] Business

[edit] Politics and public service

[edit] Other

[edit] References

  1. ^ PWC: How we are structured
  2. ^ Facts & figures
  3. ^ PWC People
  4. ^ Moss, Danny; Desanto, Barbara (2002). Public Relations Cases: International Perspectives. Routledge. p. 86. ISBN 0415234255. http://books.google.com/books?id=5JDPCSzwMTwC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0#PPA86,M1. 
  5. ^ a b c d PWC History and milestones
  6. ^ a b c PricewaterhouseCoopers 2008 revenues rose 10% to $28.2 billion
  7. ^ a b PWC Global Annual Review 2007 Page 39
  8. ^ Forbes - The Largest Private Companies
  9. ^ a b c d e Accounting for Success: a History of Price Waterhouse in America 1890-1990. Harvard Business School Press. ISBN 9780875843285. 
  10. ^ University of Washington: Accounting firms and organisations
  11. ^ A History of Coopers Brothers 1854-1954. 
  12. ^ ICAEW family trees
  13. ^ Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand to merge Weekly Corporate Growth Report 29 September 1997
  14. ^ Ernst & Young sells consulting unit to Cap Gemini Cnet News, 29 February 2000
  15. ^ Hewlett-Packard drops PWC bid BBC News, 13 November 2000
  16. ^ Monday name change for PwC, BBC News, June 10, 2002.
  17. ^ IBM buying PricewaterhouseCoopers' consulting business Technology, 31 July 2002
  18. ^ PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited
  19. ^ PWC Global Review 2007 Page 1
  20. ^ Nally named Global Chair of PwC Accountancy Age, 17 March 2009
  21. ^ a b PWC Global Review 2007 Page 34
  22. ^ PWC: CIPS
  23. ^ PWC: FS
  24. ^ PWC: TICE
  25. ^ PWC: G&PS
  26. ^ PWC: How managing political risk improves global financial performance
  27. ^ Actuarial & Insurance Management Solutions
  28. ^ Washington Federal Practice
  29. ^ CPAs in Kanebo fraud avoid prison, The Japan Times (registration required), Aug. 10, 2006.
  30. ^ Rocky road for new accounting firm, The Daily Yomiuri, Sep. 2, 2006.
  31. ^ PricewaterhouseCoopers to safeguard Hollywood's biggest secret for 72nd year
  32. ^ KPMG closes FTSE 100 gap on PWC Accountancy Age, 13 December 2007
  33. ^ PWC: Energy, utilities and mining
  34. ^ Fortune: Best companies to work for
  35. ^ Times Top 100 Graduate Employers
  36. ^ Working Mother
  37. ^ "Reasons for Selection, 2009 Canada's Top 100 Employers Competition". http://www.eluta.ca/top-employer-pricewaterhousecoopers. 
  38. ^ "Ireland's Best Companies to Work for 2008". http://www.greatplacetowork.ie/best/list-ie.htm. 
  39. ^ Pricewaterhouse to pay $225 mln in Tyco settlement
  40. ^ Satyam scandal rattles confidence in accounting Big Four
  41. ^ a b c PwC's fate Hangs in Balance
  42. ^ ICAI to seek explanation from Satyam’s auditor PwC
  43. ^ Satyam auditor says examining chairman's statement
  44. ^ What happens to PWC, The Auditor For Satyam?
  45. ^ Satyam: Auditors' body to pull up PwC ICAI to seek explanation from Satyam’s auditor PwC
  46. ^ Satyam: A Rs 7,000cr Lie
  47. ^ PWC says Satyam audit opinions may be unreliable
  48. ^ Satyam Said to Draw SEC Scrutiny in Accounting Case
  49. ^ Pomerantz Law Firm Charges Satyam's Auditors With Securities Law Violations
  50. ^ Price Waterhouse Partners Detained in Satyam Investigation
  51. ^ Two Price Waterhouse auditors held
  52. ^ RBI lifts ban on PwC
  53. ^ PwC has a chequered past with taxmen
  54. ^ Regulator may blacklist Price Waterhouse
  55. ^ Third mess-up by PwC after GTB, DSQ Soft
  56. ^ Investor group wants Sebi to supersede Satyam board
  57. ^ PricewaterhouseCoopers supports Dutch football team
  58. ^ Players Championship Tournament Sponsors
  59. ^ "Timeline: The Bernardo/Homolka case". cbc.ca. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/bernardo/. Retrieved on 2009-02-17. 
  60. ^ OLPC News

[edit] External links

Sister project Wikimedia Commons has media related to: PricewaterhouseCoopers

Coordinates: 51°30′28.74″N 0°07′28.79″W / 51.5079833°N 0.1246639°W / 51.5079833; -0.1246639

[edit] Further reading

  • True and Fair: A History of Price Waterhouse, Jones, E., 1995, Hamish Hamilton, ISBN 0-241-00172-2
  • An Early History of Coopers & Lybrand, 1984, Garland Publishing Inc., ISBN 978-0824063191
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