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PwC reasserts its position with $20bn revenues
By Andrew Parker in New York
Published: November 2 2005 15:43 | Last updated: November 2 2005 18:08
PwC reasserted its place as the world’s biggest accounting firm on Wednesday by reporting global revenues of $20.3bn for its 2005 fiscal year.

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Revenues increased 12.4 per cent in the year to June 30, fired by assistance that audit clients needed on international accounting standards in Europe and internal financial controls in the US.
Growth was also fuelled by the expansion of economies in Asia, notably China, and Latin America.
After two years of declining or flat tax revenues, PwC recorded a 5.5 per cent increase in 2005, to $4.6bn. The firm, like its rivals, is focused on selling tax services to companies that are not audit clients because of restrictions imposed after the wave of corporate scandals in the US.
PwC saw its advisory services, which include helping companies comply with regulations and manage risk, emerge as the best performer in 2005. Revenues rose 16.6 per cent to $3.5bn.
The biggest source of revenues remains assurance services, which include audit work. Revenues rose 14.6 per cent to $10.9bn.
Samuel DiPiazza, global chief executive, said the revenues increase “was driven by increased demand for our services, by new regulatory requirements in a number of major capital markets and by a favourable global economic climate”.
PwC is expected to remain the largest of the big four accounting firms even though, unlike Deloitte, it sold its consulting business.
In June Deloitte said preliminary figures suggested its global revenues for 2005 would be $18bn.
In September Ernst & Young reported global revenues for 2005 of $16.9bn. KPMG said last month that its global revenues for 2005 were $15.7bn.
All four firms have enjoyed bumper revenues because listed companies in the EU had to start using international accounting standards in January.
Most big and medium- sized public companies in the US began reporting on the quality of their internal controls against fraud this year, as required by the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation on accounting and corporate governance.
Mr DiPiazza said the accounting profession had made “a lot of progress” in its efforts to regain public trust following the scandals, where auditors were accused of failing to detect massive acccounting frauds.
However, he said every time auditors faced problems it meant that the profession took “half a step back”.
PwC, like the other big firms, continues to be accused of doing bad audit work, such as at AIG, the US insurer, and Mayflower, the UK bus maker that collapsed last year.
Net revenues, which exclude expenses billed to clients, were $19bn.
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