Rear Window

KPMG helps Macquarie learn how to give an audit contract

Only consulting firms could come up with a trick as clever as advising companies on how to award tenders that they later apply for.

Hannah WoottonColumnist

Jul 31, 2025 – 5.00am

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Who would have guessed that in the staid and reserved world of accounting, professional success can be just as much about who you know as what you know.

Nowhere is that more apparent currently than at Macquarie. As revealed by this masthead, KPMG and EY are in pole position to take over the silver doughnut’s audit contract from PwC. This is akin to winning a premiership flag for accountants – at $75 million annually, it’s the most lucrative audit in the land.

correction —

An earlier version of this article incorrectly said Peter Nash was KPMG’s current rather than former chairman. This article has also been updated to reflect differing accounts of Charles Hatchman’s introduction to Macquarie.

Hannah Wootton is a Rear Window columnist, based in Melbourne.