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Ernst & Young
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Ernst & Young (or "EY") is one of the largest professional services firms in the world and one of the Big Four auditors, along with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (Deloitte) and KPMG.
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Ernst & Young (or "EY") is one of the largest professional services firms in the world and one of the Big Four auditors, along with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (Deloitte) and KPMG. According to Forbes magazine, it is also the 7th largest private company in United States.
Ernst & Young is a global organization of member firms in more than 140 countries. Its global headquarters are based in London, UK and the U.S. firm is headquartered at 5 Times Square, New York, New York.
History
Early history
Ernst & Young is the result of a series of mergers of ancestor organizations. The oldest originating partnership was founded in 1849 in England as Harding & Pullein. In that year the firm was joined by Frederick Whinney. He was made a partner in 1859 and with his sons in the business it was renamed Whinney Smith & Whinney in 1894.
In 1903, the firm of Ernst & Ernst was established in Cleveland by Alwin and Theodore Ernst and in 1906 Arthur Young & Co. was set up by the Scotsman Arthur Young in Chicago.
As early as 1924 these American firms allied with prominent British firms, Young with Broads Paterson & Co. and Ernst with Whinney Smith & Whinney. In 1979 this led to the formation of Anglo-American Ernst & Whinney, creating the fourth largest accountancy firm in the world. Also in 1979, the European offices of Arthur Young merged with several large local European firms, which became member firms of Arthur Young International.
Mergers
In 1989, the number four merged with the then number five, Arthur Young, on a global basis to create Ernst & Young ("EY").
In October 1997, EY announced plans to merge its global practices with KPMG to create the largest professional services organization in the world, coming on the heels of another merger plan announced in September 1997 by Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand. The merger plans were abandoned in February 1998 due to client opposition, antitrust issues, cost problems and difficulty of merging the two diverse companies and cultures.
EY had built up its consultancy arm heavily during the 1980s and 90s. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and members of the investment community began to raise concerns about potential conflicts of interest between the consulting and auditing work amongst the Big Five and in May 2000, EY was the first of the firms to formally and fully separate its consulting practices via a sale to the French IT services company Cap Gemini for $11 billion, largely in stock, creating the new consulting firm of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, which was later renamed Capgemini.
Recent history
In 2002, EY merged with many of the ex-Arthur Andersen practices around the world, although not those in the USA, UK, China or the Netherlands.
Global structure
EY Global does not perform client work. It sets global standards and oversees global policy and consistency of service. Client work is performed by the member firms. Each EY member country is organised as part of one of five areas:
- Europe, Middle East, India, Africa (EMEIA)
- Americas
- Far East
- Oceania
- Japan
Each area has a single management team that is led by an Area Managing Partner who sits on the Global Executive Board. All areas are integrating their business models.
On 1 July 2008, EY received approval from partners to integrate all of its 87 country practices in Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa to create a single EMEIA managerial entity , effective from July 1, 2008.
Services
EY has four main service lines:
- Assurance and Advisory Business Services (AABS). This comprises mainly financial audit (core assurance) with 54% of total revenues and advisory services with 12% of revenues in 2007. Advisory services comprise Technology and Security Risk Services "TSRS", Fraud Investigation and Dispute Services "FIDS", Business Risk Services "BRS".
- Tax Services share of total revenues in 2007 was 22% and includes Business Tax Compliance, Human Capital, Indirect Tax, International Tax Services, Tax Accounting & Risk Advisory Services, Transaction Tax.
- Transaction Advisory Services (TAS), includes commercial, financial, real estate and tax due diligence, mergers & acquisitions, valuation & business modeling, corporate restructuring and integration services.
- Business Advisory Services (BAS), includes helping our clients improve the way their organisations work, by identifying opportunities and developing complex, sustainable change programmes. This includes looking at things like improving processes and managing performance.
Major clients
EY is the auditor for many of the world's leading corporations, including the following (as verified by their annual reports):
- Energy: BP, CNOOC, ConocoPhillips, Ferrexpo, Kazakhmys, Total, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Xstrata, Hess, Talisman Energy, Rosneft
- Entertainment: Trump Entertainment Resorts, Magna Entertainment Corp
- Financial Services: 3i, Aviva, ING, Rabobank, ICBC, ING Group, Piper Jaffray, CIBC, Manulife, Man Group, VTB, TD, UBS, US Bank, SunTrust Bank, Regions Financial Corporation, Unum Provident, National Australia Bank, AMP Ltd, Babcock and Brown, Key Bank, Endurance Reinsurance Corp, Chubb Corporation, Renaissance Capital, Bank of Cyprus, Capital One
- Government: United States Postal Service, Royal Mail, Department of Immigration and Citizenship, Royal Australian Mint
- Healthcare: HCA, CVS Caremark, Lifepoint, Cleveland Clinic, CSL Limited, UPMC, Cardinal Health, Smith & Nephew
- Industrial Products: ABB, Delphi Corporation, Eaton Corporation, Eli Lilly, Syngenta, TetraPak, Hanson, Lafarge, LVMH, Porsche, Thales Group, Allegheny Technologies, Siemens AG, Sherwin-Williams, Bombardier, Magna International, Archer Daniels Midland
- Media: Time Warner, Virgin Media, Vivendi, Associated Press, Astral Media, Warner Bros. Records, Endemol, Gannett, News Corporation
- Real Estate: Curzon Global, Cushman & Wakefield, Mid-America Apartment Communities, Emaar, GTP Halverton, Heron, Mapeley, Nakheel, Simon Property Group, Westfield Group, Tishman Speyer Properties, Fortress Investment Group, D.R. Horton, Maytas(Maytas Properties)
- Retail & Consumer Products: Amazon.com, Apple, Hilton, Intercontinental Hotels, Marriott, McDonald's, Next, Starwood, Target, Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart, Tyson Foods, Whole Foods Market, AutoZone, Chico's, Canon Inc., Staples Inc., The J.M. Smucker Co., Harley-Davidson, DineEquity, Nissan Motors, Pier 1 Imports, Boston Beer Company
- Technology: AMD, ASUS, Baidu, Facebook, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Oracle, Philips Electronics, Sun Microsystems, Research in Motion, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, Unisys, UMC, Tatung, Intuit, Apple Computers
- Telecoms: AT&T, France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Global Crossing, Orange, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, Verizon, Turk Telekom, Bharti Airtel, Vimpelcom, Megafon
- Travel/Transportation: American Airlines, British Airways, China Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, FedEx, JetBlue Airways, Northwest Airlines, Scania AB, Singapore Airlines, Southwest Airlines, RZD
Name and branding
The firm's name arises from the global merger between Ernst & Whinney and Arthur Young in 1989.
Staff
The firm was ranked No.1 in BusinessWeeks annual list of 'Best Places To Launch a Career' for 2008.
The firm was ranked No.25 in the Fortune list of '100 Best Companies To Work For', and the highest among the Big Four, for 2007.
The firm is No.36 in ComputerWorld's 100 Best Places To Work For In IT for 2008.
The firm was also placed among the Top 50 Places in the 'Where Women Want to Work' awards for 2007.
The firm was named as one of the '10 Best Companies for Working Mothers' by Working Mothers magazine in 2006.
Criticisms
Equitable Life
In April 2004, Equitable Life, a UK life assurance company, sued EY after nearly collapsing following a House of Lords judgement that it had to pay guaranteed annuities held by its policyholders. Equitable claimed that EY neglected its duty as auditor and demanded £2.6bn in compensation. Equitable abandoned the case in September 2005 and each side agreed to pay their own legal costs. EY described the case as "a scandalous waste of time, money and resources for all concerned."
Anglo Irish Bank
In January 2009, in the Anglo Irish Bank hidden loans controversy, EY was criticised by the shareholders of Anglo Irish Bank for failing to detect large loans to Sean FitzPatrick, its Chairman, during its audits. The share price fell by almost 99% and the Irish Government had to subsequently take full ownership of the Bank. A former Chief Executive of the Financial Regulator told a parliamentry committee that "a lay person would expect that issues of this nature and this magnitude would have been picked up” by the external auditors.EY declined to appear before the same committee after receiving legal advice. The Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board has initiated an investigation into the "circumstances around the issue of inappropriate directors' loans at Anglo Irish" and into the performance of EY.
Sponsorship
Ernst & Young's publicity activity includes its worldwide Entrepreneur of the Year program, run in 50 countries.
EY UK also publicizes itself by sponsoring big name art exhibitions, eg Cézanne, Picasso, Bonnard and Monet. This year's exhibitions were Rodin at the Royal Academy of Arts and Renoir at the National Gallery.
Notable current and former employees
Business
Politics and public service
- John Campbell - Member of the U.S. House of Representatives (2005-present)
- Aman Nasir - Minister of Commerce, Pakistan (2004-06)
- Jun Choi - Mayor of Edison, New Jersey (2006-present)
- Christopher Chope - Member of the British Parliament (1983-92; 1997-present)
- Sheila Fraser - Auditor General of Canada (2001-present)
- Cheryl Gillan - Member of the British Parliament (1992-present)
- Conrad Hewitt - Chief Accountant for the US SEC
- George McCarthy - Chief Secretary of the Cayman Islands (2004-present)
- Edward H Ntalami - CEO of the Kenyan Capital Markets Authority (2002-present)
- John Howell - Member of the British Parliament (2008-present)
- Mark Olson - Chairman of the US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
- Hugo Schiltz - Belgian Senator (1992-95)
- Johnathan Wu - General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (2005-2006)
- Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto - President of Pakistan (1971-1973), Prime Minister of Pakistan (1973-1977)
- Siegbert Alber - Advocate General of the European Court of Justice and founder of leading EU lobbying law firm Alber & Geiger
- Cesar Purisima - former country manager of EY's Philippine practice (known as Sycip, Gorres and Velayo & Company or "SGV & Co.") who became that country's finance minister under President Gloria Arroyo (2004-2005)
Other
External links
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