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| PwC | |
| Company type | Members have different legal structures; both UK and US firms are limited liability partnerships |
| Industry | Professional services |
| Founded | 1998 (PricewaterhouseCoopers) 1849 (Price Waterhouse) 1854 (Coopers & Lybrand)[1] |
| Founders | Samuel Lowell Price Edwin Waterhouse William Cooper |
| Headquarters | London, England, UK |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Robert Moritz (Chairman)[2] |
| Services | Assurance Risk assurance Risk advisory Tax advisory Legal services Data and analytics Management consulting Digital Transformation Financial advisory Forensic accounting |
| Revenue |  US$53.1 billion (2023)[3] |
Number of employees | 364,000 (2023)[3] |
| Website | www |
PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited[4] is a multinational professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world[5] and is considered one of the Big Four accounting firms, along with Deloitte, EY, and KPMG.[6]
PwC firms are in 157 countries, across 742 locations, with 328,000 people.[7] As of 2019,[update] 26% of the workforce was based in the Americas, 26% in Asia, 32% in Western Europe, and 5% in Middle East and Africa.[8] The company's global revenues were US$50.3 billion in FY 2022, of which $18.0 billion was generated by its Assurance practice, $11.6 billion by its Tax and Legal practice and $20.7 billion by its Advisory practice.[9] The firm in its recent actual form was created in 1998 by a merger between two accounting firms: Coopers & Lybrand, and Price Waterhouse.[1] Both firms had histories dating back to the 19th century. The trading name was shortened to PwC in September 2010 as part of a rebranding effort.[10]
The firm has been embroiled in a number of corruption controversies and crime scandals. The firm has on multiple occasions been implicated in tax evasion and tax avoidance practices. The firm has frequently been fined by regulators for performing audits that fail to meet basic auditing standards. Amid Russia's war in Ukraine, PwC has helped Russian oligarchs to hide their wealth and helped to undermine the global sanctions regime on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.[11][12]
History
The firm was created in September 1998 when Coopers & Lybrand merged with Price Waterhouse.[1]
Coopers & Lybrand
In 1854, William Cooper founded an accountancy practice in London. It became Cooper Brothers seven years later when his three brothers joined.[1]
In 1898, Robert H. Montgomery, William M. Lybrand, Adam A. Ross Jr. and his brother T. Edward Ross formed Lybrand, Ross Brothers and Montgomery in the United States.[1]
In 1957, Cooper Brothers, along with Lybrand, Ross Bros & Montgomery and a Canadian firm (McDonald, Currie and Co.), agreed to adopt the name Coopers & Lybrand in international practice.[1] In 1973, the three member firms in the UK, US and Canada changed their names to Coopers & Lybrand.[13] Then in 1980, Coopers & Lybrand expanded its expertise in insolvency substantially by acquiring Cork Gully, a leading firm in that field in the UK.[14] In 1990, in certain countries, including the UK, Coopers & Lybrand merged with Deloitte, Haskins & Sells to become Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte;[1] in 1992 they reverted to Coopers & Lybrand.[15]
Price Waterhouse
In 1849, Samuel Lowell Price, an accountant, founded an accountancy practice in London.[16] In 1865, Price went into partnership with William Hopkins Holyland and Edwin Waterhouse.[16] Holyland left shortly afterwards to work alone in accountancy and the firm was known from 1874 as Price, Waterhouse & Co.[16] The original partnership agreement, signed by Price, Holyland, and Waterhouse could be found in Southwark Towers.[17]
By the late 19th century, Price Waterhouse had gained recognition as an accounting firm. They opened an office in New York City in 1890, and the American firm expanded. The original British firm opened an office in Liverpool in 1904, and then elsewhere in the United Kingdom and worldwide, each time establishing a separate partnership in each country: the worldwide practice of Price Waterhouse was, therefore, a federation of collaborating firms that had grown organically, rather than the result of an international merger.[16]
In a further effort to take advantage of economies of scale, PW and Arthur Andersen discussed a merger in 1989[18] 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, as well as the two firms' radically different cultures. It was said by those involved with the failed merger that at the end of the discussion, the partners at the table realized they had different views of business, and the potential merger was scrapped.[19]
1998 to present
In 1998, Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand merged to form PricewaterhouseCoopers (written with a lowercase "w" and a camel case "C").[20] At that time, MCS was the largest and fastest growing division.[21]
The fallout from the Enron, Worldcom and other financial auditing scandals led to the demise of Arthur Andersen, reducing the count of the Big Five accounting firms down to the Big Four and spurring passage of the 2002 Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX). Among other restrictions, SOX severely limited the overlap between management consulting and auditing services. PwC Consulting continued to split itself off, conducting business under its name and branding rather than as the MCS division of PwC. Around July 2000, PwC began to prepare for either an acquisition or IPO by developing separate financial records that would be required for due diligence. PwC leadership began to seek buyers, with an initial interest by Hewlett-Packard for a reported $17 billion, but negotiations broke down in 2000.[22] Almost a year after the collapse of Arthur Andersen in 2001, Arthur Andersen, LLP affiliates in Hong Kong and China completed talks to join PricewaterhouseCoopers, China.[23]
In 2000, PwC acquired Canada's largest SAP consulting partner, Omnilogic Systems, to expand its developing consulting presence in Canada.[24] PwC announced in May 2002 that PwC Consulting would be spun off as an independent entity and filed with the SEC for an initial $1B IPO to trade in August.[25] Because PwC accounting partners owned 60% of PwC Consulting, an IPO or acquisition was seen as the only way to split the two firms without decimating the consulting arm's working capital.[26]
PwC Consulting leadership continued to fluff financials by expanding across-the-board pay cuts, terminating its variable compensation program, and furthering deep layoffs, all rare actions in the industry. In June 2002, PwC Consulting hired Continental Airlines' Greg Brennerman as CEO to run the global division.[27] A week later, it was announced that an outside consultancy, Wolff Olins, had created new branding for the consulting group, called "Monday".[28] 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."[29] In July 2002, it was rumored that PwC was in talks with an unknown public company, as no PR space or announcement for the impending IPO had been set. Those rumors were confirmed in August 2002, when PwC announced it sold Monday to IBM for approximately $3.5 billion in cash and stock. Monday was consolidated into IBM Global Business Services while partners became employees for the first time. The acquisition had a modest increase in the size and capabilities of IBM's growing consulting practice, as IBM had 150,000 employees at the time. At the same time, Monday carried just 30,000 at the time.[30] However, it was seen as a win by IBM since PwC Consulting/Monday's valuation had suffered after the post-9/11 recession.[31]
PwC began rebuilding its consulting practice with acquisitions such as Paragon Consulting Group and the commercial services business of BearingPoint in 2009.[32] The firm continued this process by acquiring Diamond Management & Technology Consultants in November 2010,[33] and PRTM in August 2011.[34] In 2012, the firm acquired Logan Tod & Co, a digital analytics and optimisation consultancy,[35] and Ant's Eye View, a social media strategy development and consulting firm to build upon PwC's growing Management Consulting customer impact and customer engagement capabilities.[36]
In April 2014,[37] Booz & Company combined with PwC to form Strategy&.[38][39] In 2013, PwC acquired BGT Partners.[40] In 2016, PwC acquired technology/consulting firm NSI DMCC.[41] In January 2017, PwC announced a five-year agreement with GE to provide managed tax services to GE on a global basis, transferring more than 600 of GE's in-house global tax team to PwC.[42] In November 2017, PwC accepted bitcoin as payment for advisory services, the first time the company, or any of the Big Four accounting firms, accepted virtual currency as payment.[43] Veritas Capital acquired PwC's US public sector business in 2018, and branded the new company as Guidehouse.[44][45] The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has utilized the services of PwC to tally the votes for the Academy Awards since 1935.[46] In addition, the company oversees AMPAS elections, prepares its financial documents, and is responsible for the group's tax filings.[47] In 2023, PwC acquired Surfaceink, a hardware designer.[48]
In May 2024, PwC became ChatGPT Enterprise's biggest customer and will also start reselling OpenAI's service for other large businesses.[49]
Operations
PwC refers to the PwC network and/or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity due to local legislative requirements.[50] Much like other professional services firms, each member firm is financially and legally independent. PwC is co-ordinated by a private company limited by guarantee under English law, called PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited.[51] In addition, PwC is registered as a multidisciplinary entity which also provides legal services.[52]
PwC's operations are global, with Europe accounting for 36% of the total, and the Americas 44%, as of 2016.[53][54] PwC's largest growth in FY18 was in Asia where revenues were up 15%, followed by 12% revenue growth from the Middle East and Africa.[55]
Service lines
PwC is organized into the following three service lines (the 2017 revenue shares are listed in parentheses):[56]
- Assurance (41%) – Assurance services are those typically associated with financial audits.[57]
- Advisory (33%) – Advisory services offered by PwC include two actuarial consultancy departments; Actuarial and Insurance Management Solutions (AIMS) and a sub branch of "Human Resource Services" (HRS). Actuarial covers mainly 5 areas: pensions, life insurance, non-life insurance, health, and investments. AIMS deals with life and non-life insurance and investments, while HRS deals mainly with pensions and group health.[58] PwC has also expanded into digital media and advertising.[59]
- Tax (25%) – International tax planning
Data analysis
Due to its size, PwC is able to contribute data analysis to a wide range of areas.
- Calculation of the drone market size: PwC published a 2016 report stating that the world drone market would reach close to $127 billion by 2020, with Poland at the forefront of legislation for the commercial use of unmanned aerial vehicles.[60][61]
- PwC coined the term E7 to describe the seven emerging economies which the company is predicting will take over today's G7 nations by 2050. Those seven emerging nations are China, Russia, India, Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey and Brazil.[62]
- PwC assesses a country's risk premium, an important factor in analyzing the valuation of an entity.[63][64]
- The company analyzes pay parity, the comparative salaries for men versus women. In early 2017, PwC found in its Women in Work Index study that it could take the UK 24 years, until 2041, to close its gender pay gap.[65]
- PwC publishes the Low Carbon Economy Index, which tracks the extent to which the G20 countries are reducing carbon emissions.[66][67][68][69]
- The Economy of the Sea is a long-term analysis project of PwC Portugal. It is part of the HELM project, launched in 2006 to create an integrated approach to successful and sustainable maritime practices. It analyses best practices around the world and compiles data from industries that rely or work on the sea and the nations that use it.[70][71]
- PwC developed the Total Impact Measurement and Management (TIMM) framework, designed to assist companies in carrying out impact studies which will help them put a value on all of a company's activities, products or services.[72][73]
Offices
PwC has partners in approximately 800 offices across 157 countries with 200,000 employees.[74][75] Notable offices include Seaport office tower in Boston;[76] and Magwa Crescent Waterfall City tower in Midrand, South Africa.[77]
The 2018 PwC Global Annual Review states the revenue of the firm by region, as follows:[78][79]
| Region | Revenue ($bn) (2018) |
|---|---|
| Americas | 17.454 |
| Asia | 5.675 |
| Australasia and Pacific | 1.810 |
| Central and Eastern Europe | 0.918 |
| Western Europe | 13.864 |
| Middle East and Africa | 1.559 |
Logo
The following are the several logos the company has used through the years. The current PwC logo was introduced in September 2010, when the company changed its trading name from PricewaterhouseCoopers to PwC. It was designed by Wolff Olins.[80][81][82]
-
The Coopers & Lybrand logo prior to the 1998 merger -
The Price Waterhouse logo prior to the 1998 merger -
The PricewaterhouseCoopers logo from 1998 to 2010 -
The PwC logo from 2010 to present
Corporate affairs and culture
The company employs large numbers of young workers, with 80% of their workforce millennials as of 2017.[83] According to PwC, the company uses education to bridge the culture gap between generations.[83] The firm also implements a three-step "Connect-Embed-Improve" plan to promote employee engagement.[84] The company requires senior-level staff to continue to train and learn; PwC also created a social collaboration platform called Spark to enable employees to access course materials and assignments, complete prerequisites and access reinforcement materials.[85]
In 2016, Tim Ryan, PwC's chairman, helped launch the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion coalition, the largest CEO-driven business commitment to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace.[86][87][88]
Employees at PwC generally have flexibility in choosing their own working hours provided that senior management deems the arrangement acceptable.[89][90] In 2002, PwC published the accounting profession's first global "Code of Conduct".[91][92] Strategy& and PwC publish Strategy+Business, a print and online business magazine focusing on management issues and corporate strategy.[93] In June 2021, PwC together with Edelman, the company's agency partner, launched a program, The Trust Leadership Institute.[94][95]
PwC developed a ColourBrave Charity Committee, made up of employees from across the organisation, as part of its commitment to continue to build an inclusive culture and address racial disparity. The Committee chose 25 Black-led organisations and civil society organisations to join the PwC Foundation and PwC Social Entrepreneurs Club's existing list of beneficiaries.[96][97]
As of 2021[update], PwC is the fourth-largest privately owned company in the United States.[98]
Reports on PwC's involvement in the Australian tax scandal revealed an alternate "shadow culture" that operates separately from its public-facing culture. The "shadow culture" prioritizes loyalty to superiors, unquestioning acceptance of the status quo, and a mentality of revenue "growth at all costs", even to the point of rulebreaking.[99]
Staff
As of 30 June 2021, PwC had 295,371 employees around the world.[100] The largest percentage of workers are employed in Western Europe, Asia and the Americas.[100] The following shows the number of employees in each region of the world as of FY 2021.[100]