Image source: Deloitte
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, popularly known as Deloitte, is one of the biggest accounting organizations in the world. Commonly regarded as one of the Big Four alongside KPMG, Ernst & Young (EY), PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC), it has the largest professional services network in terms of the number of professionals and annual revenue. The company’s beginnings date back to 1845 in London, England. The company was established by William Welch Deloitte as an accounting office in London, England. Over the last century, it has gone through a series of mergers and is not officially headquartered in New York City.
Deloitte has its operations in more than 150 countries, with nearly 350,000 employees working in different capacities worldwide. It is a privately-held company limited by guarantee, and since 2009, its year-on-year revenue has increased to $47.6 billion in 2020. Deloitte has a strong presence in the Americas compared to the other big four companies, and that strength reflects in its revenue streams. Deloitte’s success over the years is attributed to its primary services, which are tax and financial advisory, consulting, legal services, and audit and enterprise risk services. The consulting segment held the largest share of the company’s service line in 2020 against the audit and risk advisory service, which generated the highest revenue till 2016. The consulting segment has also been the fastest-growing segment between 2006 and 2020, seeing a revenue jump from $4.5 billion to $19.8 billion.
Deloitte’s expansion into the United States happened in 1890 after it merged with Haskins & Sells in 1972 to form Deloitte Haskins & Sells and then with Touche Ross in 1989 to form Deloitte & Touche. The company changed its name to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu in 1993, which has then shortened to just Deloitte. Arthur Andersen’s practices in Europe, alongside its other practices in North and South America, merged with Deloitte in 2002. Deloitte went through many other acquisitions, such as that of Monitor Group in January 2013.
According to Forbes, Deloitte is the third-largest privately-owned company in the United States. It has also been involved in notable events such as the sponsorship of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. A multinational company enjoying such a high level of success must have had some trying times. Deloitte has fought off many litigations on a few of its audits, one of which is its involvement in what was tagged a “potentially misleading” report on illicit tobacco trading in Australia. The company also suffered a cyber-attack in September 2017 that breached some of its employee information and client confidentiality. In 2011, the company was also accused of accounting improprieties in its role as an internal auditor for Carillon and external auditor for Autonomy and the write-down of the company’s value after Hewlett-Packard acquired it. Despite all these accusations, the company’s giant strides have remained unmatched.
Many people have built long-lasting careers at Deloitte, and the company continues to expand its reach worldwide as a top accounting firm in the world. As a New York City-based company, it gives core New Yorkers something to brag about and identify with.
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