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Big four consultants

This Month

Are you guilty of using this year’s most awful jargon?

Here’s the past 12 months in words and phrases that professionals love to use, and what they’re really saying. We hope to never see any of them again.

  • Updated
  • Edmund Tadros
New Alvarez & Marsal managing directors (from left): Paul Gallagher, Shahzeb Panhwar and Jayde Thompson.

‘Eat what you kill:’ how this consultancy is taking on the big four

Alvarez & Marsal’s remuneration model means managing directors can potentially earn multiples of the average big four partner pay.

  • Edmund Tadros

What Defence spent on consultants could run submarine fleet for a year

What would Defence’s $811 million in spending on the big five consulting firms in 2022-23 buy? Turns out the answer is quite a lot.

  • Ronald Mizen

PwC in talks to offload insolvency unit to Teneo

Insolvency teams have a long history of moving in and out of the big four firms as they become frustrated at being constantly conflicted out of work.

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport
Law Partnership Survey Paul Jenkins, Victoria Hepburn

MinterEllison raids PwC, KPMG to build up consulting arm

Consultants now make up almost 10 per cent of fee-earners at the firm, as clients prove increasingly willing to seek non-legal advice from law firms.

  • Edmund Tadros
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The letters were sent from both PwC’s global general counsel Diana Weiss and current global chairman Lisa Sawicki and copied in the top global leaders in the firm as of mid-2023: global chairman Bob Moritz (from left), Asia Pacific and China chairman Raymund Chao, UK senior partner Kevin Ellis, senior US partner Tim Ryan and Europe chairman Petra Justenhoven. Only Ms Justenhoven remains in the Network leadership team.

Why PwC global put its own man in to run PwC Australia

PwC International parachuted in UK partner Kevin Burrowes to run the Australian firm after becoming frustrated with the local firm’s “failure to co-operate”.

  • Edmund Tadros

November

PwC retirement cuts

PwC Australia to cut payments to retired partners by at least 25pc

About 700 former partners will have their retirement payments cut after profits dropped due to hundreds of partners leaving after the tax leaks scandal.

  • Edmund Tadros
Tom Pagram, Nicola Costello, PwC Partner Digital and AI Trust Leader, Amrita Jebamoney and Alfredo Martinez, PwC Partner Regulatory Pathfinder Leader

PwC wants to slash the time it takes to comply with regulations, laws

The consultancy firm has developed a service that aims to dramatically speed up the time-consuming process of mapping a company’s legal obligations.

  • Edmund Tadros
The government’s new in-house consulting unit has notched up 15 projects.

Canberra’s in-house consultants notch up 15 government projects

The federal government’s internal consulting service has completed 15 projects, including policy development, analytics assessments and strategy work.

  • Edmund Tadros
Former PwC partner Paul McNab.

PwC sues ex-partner Paul McNab over tax leaks scandal

The firm is suing him back and claiming he was personally responsible for the massive financial damage the scandal has wrought on the accounting giant.

  • Edmund Tadros
Big four

What the inquiry into the structure of the big four firms recommended

A summary of the key recommendations from the joint parliamentary inquiry into the structure of the big four consulting firms and what they mean for the sector.

  • Updated
  • Edmund Tadros
EY has the most Australian Olympians at the Paris Games.

Capping big four partnerships would ’cause great disruption’

Two conservative members of an inquiry committee that recommended capping accounting partnerships at 400 said the move would be an “extraordinary intervention” by the government.

  • Edmund Tadros
Senators Deborah O’Neill and Barbara Pocock EY, Deloitte, PWC, KPMG

Big four partnerships should be capped at 400, inquiry finds

The major consulting firms could also be forced to separate the management of their audit and non-audit practices under recommended changes.

  • Updated
  • Edmund Tadros
Joanne Gorton is the board’s preferred Deloitte Australia CEO nominee.

Deloitte board nominates Joanne Gorton as preferred CEO

The firm’s head of audit has been selected as the preferred candidate to replace chief executive Adam Powick.

  • Edmund Tadros
Finance Minister Katy Gallagher.

Labor cuts spending on major consulting firms by $891m over two years

The value of Commonwealth work outsourced to Accenture, Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PWC is down to $1.5 billion since Labor took power in mid-2022.

  • Edmund Tadros
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Minister for Women Katy Gallagher says core work includes “developing cabinet submissions, drafting legislation and regulation, and leading policy formulation”.

$500m in Canberra consulting to be slashed

Consulting firms working for Defence, the NDIS and the Tax Office will be hardest hit by a new plan to strip more than $500 million in work from the embattled advisory sector this financial year.

  • Edmund Tadros

October

KPMG Australia

This is the kind of consulting work KPMG Australia will send offshore

The firm’s consulting arm plans to send 44,000 hours of work to employees based overseas this financial year as part of a push to change the way KPMG operates.

  • Edmund Tadros
KPMG graduate Niamh Tomlinson uses generative AI in her work.

How this consultant saves half a day a week using AI

KPMG graduate Niamh Tomlinson says improved productivity using the firm’s internal AI tool lets her spend more time doing higher value work.

  • Edmund Tadros
Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones.

Chartered Accountants demands changes to revised tax agent rules

The accounting body fears that proposed laws to rein in rogue tax agents would erode “the relationship between a taxpayer and their agent”.

  • Edmund Tadros
Outgoing EY Port Jackson Partners managing directer Byron Pirola and new leader Chris Paxton.

EY’s local strategy division appoints deals veteran as leader

Clients are willing to pay a premium for strategy advisers who are also experienced industry experts, says the new managing partner of EY’s local strategy arm.

  • Edmund Tadros

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/big-four-consultants-1mq8