With EY’s breakup in sight, will other firms follow suit?

Partners at accounting giant Ernst & Young are expected to approve a split of the company’s auditing and consulting businesses. The audit-focused company would retain the EY brand.

Why should we care?
The EY split may have a cascading effect on how the other Big Four structure their businesses. “There’s a good chance it will cause other big firms to follow suit,” said Martin White, Senior Analyst at Source Global Research. “Who doesn’t want a massive payday if you think it’s there and it’s not going to cause… longer-term harm?” Partners in the audit business will receive cash payouts, while consulting partners will receive equity in the new company. So far, however, KPMG, Deloitte, and PricewaterhouseCoopers all said they’re sticking to their singular structures, in which auditing and consulting operate as one business. Depending on how EY’s breakup goes in the medium term, regulators may push for ways to split up the other Big Four; regulators see these giants’ size and variety of services as potential sources of conflicts of interest. In the meantime, if the split is approved, we should expect a significant marketing blitz from EY’s new consulting-business offshoot, which will have to establish itself as a standalone brand without resting on EY’s laurels.