會計界big four

Big Four auditors

The Big 4, sometimes written as the Big Four, is a group of international accountancy and professional services firms that handles the vast majority of audits for publicly traded companies as well as many private companies. The Big Four firms are shown below, with their latest publicly available data:

Firm Revenues People
PricewaterhouseCoopers [1] $22.0bn 140,000
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu [2] $20.0bn 150,000
Ernst & Young [3] $18.4bn 114,000
KPMG [4] $16.9bn 113,000

The fifth largest firm, BDO International, had recent revenues of $3.911 billion USD and 30,000 employees. Deloitte's numbers include $4.5bn of Consulting revenues which are often excluded when comparing these firms as the other three disposed of their consulting arms between 2000 and 2003 and have only recently begun to offer "business advisory services."

This group was once known as the "Big Eight" before a series of mergers, and also included Arthur Andersen. Arthur Andersen was convicted of obstruction of justice (this conviction was later unanimously overturned by the United States Supreme Court) in the wake of the 2001 Enron scandal.

1 The big get bigger
1.1 Big 8 (1970s-1989)
1.2 Big 6 (1989-1998)
1.3 Big 5 (1998-2002)
1.4 Big 4 (2002-)

The big get bigger
Since 1989, mergers have reduced the number of major accountancy firms from eight to four.

Big 8 (1970s-1989)
The firms were called the Big 8 in the 1970s and 1980s, reflecting the international dominance of the eight largest accounting firms:

Arthur Andersen
Arthur Young & Company
Coopers & Lybrand
Ernst & Whinney (formerly Ernst & Ernst)
Haskins & Sells (merged with the European firm Deloitte Plender Griffiths to become Deloitte, Haskins and Sells)
KPMG (formed by merger of Peat Marwick International and KMG Group)
Price Waterhouse
Touche Ross
The Big 8 themselves were the results of earlier mergers.


Big 6 (1989-1998)
Competition among these public accounting firms intensified and the Big 8 became the Big 6 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.

Confusingly, in the United Kingdom the local firm of Deloitte, Haskins & Sells merged instead with Coopers & Lybrand. For some years after the merger, the merged firm was called Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte and the local firm of Touche Ross kept its original name. In the mid 1990s however, both UK firms changed their names to match those of their respective international organizations.


Big 5 (1998-2002)
The Big 6 became the Big 5 in July 1998 when Price Waterhouse merged with Coopers & Lybrand to form PricewaterhouseCoopers.


Big 4 (2002-)
The Enron collapse and ensuing investigation prompted scrutiny of their financial reporting, which was audited by Arthur Andersen, which eventually was indicted for obstruction of justice for shredding documents related to the audit in the 2001 Enron scandal. The resulting conviction, since overturned, still effectively meant the end for Arthur Andersen. Most of its country practices around the world have sold to members of what is now the Big Four, notably Ernst & Young globally and Deloitte & Touche in the UK.

1. 安永會計師事務所

安永會計師事務所（Ernst & Young）在2007年10月臺灣的致遠會計師事務所已正式與全球同步更名為安永會計師事務所,為世界四大會計師事務所之一，亦是2006年以收入計，世界第2大專業服務公司，排名在普華永道(PriceWaterhouseCoopers)之後。

安永會計師事務所的前身是1903年成立於美國克利夫蘭的Ernst & Ernst(1979年後合併為Ernst & Whinney)會計公司和1894年成立於美國紐約的Arthur Young會計公司。

在華業務由位於香港的中國區總部負責，在北京、成都、大連、廣州、澳門、上海、深圳、蘇州、武漢設有辦事處。

2. 德勤會計師事務所

德勤會計師事務所（Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu，台灣稱為勤業眾信，香港稱為德勤華永）是全球四大國際會計師事務所之一，現時全球品牌名稱(global brand name)為 德勤（Deloitte）。

現時德勤在四大中排行第二，總收入跟員工人數略少於普華永道(PriceWaterhouseCoopers)。

3. 安侯建業會計師事務所

安侯建業會計師事務所（KPMG，中國大陸稱為畢馬威）是全球四大國際會計師事務所之一。該事務所在大中華地區如香港、澳門、廣州、上海、深圳、成都、杭州、台北及北京均設有分所。

該事務所中港地區客戶包括家樂福、歐尚、西門子、通用電力、國泰航空公司、中國建設銀行、中信銀行、中國電信、匯豐控股、地鐵公司、飛利浦、中國石化、花旗銀行、渣打銀行、德意志銀行、荷蘭銀行、荷蘭商業銀行、澳新銀行、海富通基金、國聯安基金、Yum!百勝集團、煇瑞製藥等企業

4. 普華永道會計師事務所

資誠會計師事務所（PriceWaterhouseCoopers或PwC，中國大陸稱普華永道，香港稱作羅兵咸永道，俗稱水記或水房）是世界最大的專業服務機構。它是普華（Price Waterhouse）和永道（Coopers&Lybrand）於1998年合併組建而成。資誠和安侯建業（KPMG）、致遠（Ernst&Young）以及勤業眾信（Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu）合稱為四大會計師事務所。

資誠2005年會計年度全球收入為203億美元，並在150個國家僱用了155,000人