PricewaterhouseCoopers (trading as PwC) is a multinational professional services

network. It is the largest professional services firm in the world, and is one of the
Big Four auditors, along with Deloitte, EY and KPMG. Vault Accounting 50 has
ranked PwC as the most prestigious accounting firm in the world for seven
consecutive years, as well as the top firm to work for in North America for three
consecutive years.[5]

PwC is a network of firms in 157 countries, 756 locations, with more than 208,100
people. It had total revenues of $35.4 billion in FY 2015, of which $15.2 billion
was generated by its Assurance practice, $8.9 billion by its Tax practice and
$11.3 billion by its Advisory practice.[4]

The firm was formed in 1998 by a merger between Coopers & Lybrand and Price
Waterhouse.[1] The trading name was shortened to PwC in September 2010 as
part of a rebranding.[6]

As of 2015, PwC is the 6th-largest privately owned organization in the United

States.[7]
The firm was created in 1998 when Coopers & Lybrand merged with Price
Waterhouse.[1] Both firms had histories dating back to the 19th century.

Coopers & Lybrand[edit]

In 1854 William Cooper founded an accountancy practice in London, which
became Cooper Brothers seven years later when his three brothers joined.[1]

In 1898, Robert H. Montgomery, William M. Lybrand, Adam A. Ross Jr. and his
brother T. Edward Ross formed Lybrand, Ross Brothers and Montgomery in the
United States.[1]

In 1957 Cooper Brothers; Lybrand, Ross Bros & Montgomery and a Canadian firm
McDonald, Currie and Co, agreed to adopt the name Coopers & Lybrand in
international practice.[1] In 1973 the three member firms in the UK, US and
Canada changed their names to Coopers & Lybrand.[8] Then in 1980 Coopers &
Lybrand expanded its expertise in insolvency substantially by acquiring Cork
Gully, a leading firm in that field in the UK.[9] In 1990 in certain countries
including the UK, Coopers & Lybrand merged with Deloitte Haskins & Sells to
become Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte:[1] in 1992 they reverted to Coopers &
Lybrand.[10]

Price Waterhouse[edit]

Edwin Waterhouse photographed as a young man

Samuel Lowell Price, an accountant, founded an accountancy practice in London
in 1849.[11] In 1865 Price went into partnership with William Hopkins Holyland
and Edwin Waterhouse. Holyland left shortly after to work alone in accountancy
and the firm was known from 1874 as Price, Waterhouse & Co.[11] (The comma
was dropped from the name much later.) The original partnership agreement,
signed by Price, Holyland and Waterhouse could be found in Southwark Towers,
one of PwC's important legacy offices (now demolished).[12]

By the late 19th century, Price Waterhouse had gained significant recognition as
an accounting firm. As a result of growing trade between the United Kingdom and
the United States, Price Waterhouse opened an office in New York in 1890,[11]
and the American firm itself soon expanded rapidly. The original British firm
opened an office in Liverpool in 1904[11] and then elsewhere in the United
Kingdom and worldwide, each time establishing a separate partnership in each
country: the worldwide practice of PW was therefore a federation of collaborating
firms that had grown organically rather than being the result of an international
merger.[11]

In a further effort to take advantage of economies of scale, PW and Arthur

Andersen discussed a merger in 1989[13] but the negotiations failed mainly
because of conflicts of interest such as Andersen's strong commercial links with
IBM and PW's audit of IBM as well as the radically different cultures of the two
firms. It was said by those involved with the failed merger that at the end of the
discussion, the partners at the table realized they had different views of business,
and the potential merger was scrapped.[14]

1998 to present[edit]
In 1998, Price Waterhouse merged with Coopers & Lybrand to form
PricewaterhouseCoopers (written with a lowercase "w").[15]

After the merger the firm had a large professional consulting branch, as did other
major accountancy firms, generating much of its fees. Management Consulting
Services (MCS) was the fastest growing and often most profitable area of the
practice, though it was cyclical. The major cause for growth in the 1990s was the

implementation of complex integrated ERP systems for multi-national companies.

PwC came under increasing pressure to avoid conflicts of interests by not
providing some consulting services, particularly financial systems design and
implementation, to its audit clients. Since it audited a large proportion of the
world's largest companies, this was beginning to limit its consulting market.
These conflicts increased as additional services including outsourcing of IT and
back office operations were developed. For these reasons, in 2000, Ernst & Young
was the first of the Big Four to sell its consulting services, to Capgemini.[16]

The fallout from the Enron, Worldcom and other financial auditing scandals led to
the passage of the SarbanesOxley Act (2002), severely limiting interaction
between management consulting and auditing (assurance) services. PwC
Consulting began to conduct business under its own name rather than as the
MCS division of PricewaterhouseCoopers. PwC therefore planned to capitalize on
MCS's rapid growth through its sale to Hewlett Packard (for a reported $17 billion)
but negotiations broke down in 2000.[17]

In 2000, PwC acquired Canada's largest SAP consulting partner Omnilogic

Systems.[18]

In March 2002 Arthur Andersen, LLP affiliates in Hong Kong and China completed
talks to join PricewaterhouseCoopers, China.[19]

PwC announced in May 2002 that its consulting activities would be spun off as an
independent entity and hired an outside CEO to run the global firm. An outside
consultancy, Wolff Olins, was hired to create a brand image for the new entity,
called "Monday".[20] The firm's CEO, Greg Brenneman described the unusual
name as "a real word, concise, recognizable, global and the right fit for a
company that works hard to deliver results."[21] These plans were soon revised,
however. In October 2002, PwC sold the entire consultancy business to IBM for
approximately $3.9 billion in cash and stock. PwC's consultancy business was
absorbed into IBM Global Business Services, increasing the size and capabilities
of IBM's growing consulting practice.[22]

PwC began rebuilding its consulting practice with acquisitions such as Paragon
Consulting Group and the commercial services business of BearingPoint in 2009.
[23] The firm continued this process by acquiring Diamond Management &
Technology Consultants Inc in November 2010[24] and PRTM in August 2011.[25]
In 2012 the firm acquired Logan Tod & Co, a digital analytics and optimisation
consultancy,[26] and Ants Eye View, a social media strategy development and

consulting firm to build upon PwC's growing Management Consulting customer

impact and customer engagement capabilities.[27] On October 30, 2013, the firm
announced that it would acquire Booz & Company.[28] On November 4, 2013, the
firm acquired BGT Partners, a 17-year-old digital consultancy.[29] PwC's Public
Sector practice was awarded the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in
2014.[30]

The company currently offers a growing range of enterprise-level software

services to meet rising data management challenges.[31]

Operations[edit]