The head of PWC’s UK business stood by the firm’s decision to keep the business together despite other members of the elite accounting family changing course.
Kevin Ellis, senior partner in PWC’s UK and Middle East practice, told The Times today: “Being a multidisciplinary firm and running a transaction business alongside audit has given us financial stability.”
He added that this would give PWC an “à la carte, not a set menu” approach to the way it can provide services to its clients.
His words come at a time when the group’s consulting division, which is retiring 60-year-old Ellis this year as per company policy, is facing a slowdown in business as companies cut their budgets for costly management consultancy services.
Due to the size of the four major companies, serving their customers is becoming increasingly difficult – and many potential contracts also result in conflicts of interest.
At the end of 2022, EY attempted to resolve this separation by splitting it into smaller parts.
The plan, known as “Project Everest,” would have broken up EY’s audit and consulting divisions and would have been the biggest restructuring in the audit sector in over twenty years.
However, after several delays and taking on additional debt of $700 million (£554.27 million) in return for its efforts, the group abandoned the plan in April last year.
Ellis said the decision to keep PWC together, which he made early in his tenure at the helm of the UK group, ultimately proved justified during the coronavirus pandemic, when audit revenues boosted the firm’s earnings and the advisory business benefited from the booming post-pandemic deal scene.
While the firm’s 1,057-partner group is in the process of selecting a successor to Ellis, Janet Truncale, the incoming global managing director of rival consulting firm EY, is set to take up her new role in July.
