PricewaterhouseCoopers Unseats Arthur Andersen as Top U.S. Accounting Firm

Business Wire, March 7, 2001

Business Editors

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 7, 2001

Survey: Deloitte & Touche Challenging for Number One Position

PricewaterhouseCoopers has dethroned Arthur Andersen as the nation's biggest accounting firm, but it may not be long before Deloitte & Touche assumes the throne, an exclusive new research report by Public Accounting Report (http://www.straffordpub.com/products/par/index.html) shows.

PricewaterhouseCoopers overtook Arthur Andersen on Public Accounting Report's Annual Survey of National Accounting Firms - 2001 as the latter firm watched Andersen Consulting leave last year in a bitter, arbitrated divorce. However, PricewaterhouseCoopers itself is leaning toward a public offering or sale of its consulting practice, according to Consulting Alert (http://www.straffordpub.com/products/can/index.html), a sister publication of Public Accounting Report.

If that happens, Deloitte & Touche would take over as the nation's biggest firm, followed by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young.

PricewaterhouseCoopers rang up $8.30 billion in FY00 U.S. net revenue, trailed in the profession's Big Five by Deloitte & Touche ($5.84 billion), KPMG ($4.72 billion), Ernst & Young ($4.27 billion) and Arthur Andersen ($3.60 billion), the National Firms Survey (http://www.straffordpub.com) found. Grant Thornton remained the sixth-biggest national firm with $416 million of revenue, but dogged much more closely this year by fast-growing BDO Seidman ($412 million). McGladrey & Pullen was the No. 8 U.S. firm with $127 million of net revenue.

BDO Seidman enjoyed the group's fastest growth rate at 38.3%, thanks to a huge year in its tax practice. Without help from the booming Andersen Consulting, Arthur Andersen reported the slowest growth among national firms, 9.1%.

Each year, Atlanta-based Public Accounting Report, the oldest and most widely circulated independent newsletter of the public accounting profession, surveys the nation's largest firms about their domestic and global revenues, practice breakdowns, staffing numbers and other key indicators.

Public Accounting Report is published by Atlanta-based Strafford Publications, Inc. To view excerpts of the 2001 survey online, go to http://www.straffordpub.com/accounting/index.html. Reporters wanting a full copy of a special National Firms Survey edition as well as the Feb. 28 regular edition of Public Accounting Report, which includes additional coverage about the survey results, can contact Executive Editor Jon McKenna at (404) 881-1141, Ext. 38, or jon_mckenna@straffordpub.com. Both editions include tables.