The name PricewaterhouseCoopers comes from the merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand

in 1998
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PricewaterhouseCoopers
http://www.vault.com/company-profiles/accounting/pricewaterhousecoopers-llp/company-
overview.aspx
PricewaterhouseCoopers (doing business as PwC) is a multinational professional
services network headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the second largest professional
services firm in the world,[5] and is one of the Big Four auditors, along with Deloitte, EY and KPMG.
[6]
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.[7]
PwC is a network of firms in 157 countries, 756 locations, with more than 223,000 people. [8] As of
2015, 22% of the workforce worked in Asia, 26% in North America and Caribbean and 32% in
Western Europe. The company's global revenues were $35.9 billion in FY 2016, of which $15.2
billion was generated by its Assurance practice, $9.1 billion by its Tax practice and $11.5 billion by its
Advisory practice.[4]
The firm was formed in 1998 by a merger between Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse. [1] Both
firms had histories dating back to the 19th century. The trading name was shortened to PwC in
September 2010 as part of a rebranding.[9]
As of 2016, PwC is the 5th-largest privately owned company in the United States.[10

History[edit]
The firm was created in 1998 when Coopers & Lybrand merged with Price Waterhouse. [1]

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. [11] Then in
1980 Coopers & Lybrand expanded its expertise in insolvency substantially by acquiring Cork Gully,
a leading firm in that field in the UK.[12] 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.[13]

Price Waterhouse[edit]
Edwin Waterhouse photographed as a young man

Samuel Lowell Price, an accountant, founded an accountancy practice in London in 1849. [14] In 1865
Price went into partnership with William Hopkins Holyland and Edwin Waterhouse. Holyland left
shortly afterwards to work alone in accountancy and the firm was known from 1874 as Price,
Waterhouse & Co.[14] (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).[15]
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,[14] and the American firm itself soon expanded rapidly. The
original British firm opened an office in Liverpool in 1904[14] 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.[14]
In a further effort to take advantage of economies of scale, PW and Arthur Andersen discussed a
merger in 1989[16] 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.[17]

1998 to present[edit]
In 1998, Price Waterhouse merged with Coopers & Lybrand to form PricewaterhouseCoopers
(written with a lowercase "w").[18]
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.[19]
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.[20]
In 2000, PwC acquired Canada's largest SAP consulting partner Omnilogic Systems. [21]
In March 2002 Arthur Andersen, LLP affiliates in Hong Kong and China completed talks to join
PricewaterhouseCoopers, China.[22]
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".[23] 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."[24] These plans were soon revised, however. In
October 2002, PwC sold the entire consultancy business to IBM for approximately $3.5 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. [25]
PwC began rebuilding its consulting practice with acquisitions such as Paragon Consulting Group
and the commercial services business of BearingPoint in 2009.[26] The firm continued this process by
acquiring Diamond Management & Technology Consultants in November 2010[27] and PRTM in
August 2011.[28] In 2012 the firm acquired Logan Tod & Co, a digital analytics and optimisation
consultancy,[29] 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.[30]
On October 30, 2013, the firm announced that it would acquire Booz & Company, including the
company's name and its 300 partners, after a December vote by Booz & Company partners
authorized the deal. On April 3, 2014,[31] Booz & Company combined with PwC to form Strategy&.
[32] [33]

On November 4, 2013, the firm acquired BGT Partners, a 17-year-old digital consultancy. [34]
After researching the role of digital money for over two years, PwC published a 17-page report called
Money is no object: Understanding the evolving crypto-currency market, in August, 2015. The
report concluded that cryptocurrency will replace conventional markets with new technology-driven
markets.[35]
In January 2017, PwC announced a five-year agreement with GE to provide managed tax services
to GE on a global basis, transferring more than 600 of GE's in-house global tax team to PwC. In
addition, PwC will acquire GEs tax technologies and provide managed services not only to GE but
also to other PwC clients as well.[36]

Operations[edit]
PwC's operations are global, but with Europe accounting for 43% of the total, and North America and
the Caribbean 41%.[37] [38]

Service lines[edit]
PwC is organized into the following three service lines (the 2016 revenue shares are listed in
parentheses):[39]

Assurance (43%)

Advisory (32%) - Advisory services offered by PwC include two actuarial consultancy
departments; Actuarial and Insurance Management Solutions (AIMS) and a sub branch of
"Human Resource Services" (HRS). Actuarial covers mainly 5 areas: pensions, life
 insurance, non-life insurance, health, and investments. AIMS deals with life and non-life
insurance and investments, while HRS deals mainly with pensions and group health. [40] In the US
PwC serves the US Federal Government through their Public Sector practice. PwC has over
2000 professionals based in the Washington Metro Corridor. [41]

Tax (25%) International tax planning and compliance with local tax laws, customs, human
resource consulting, legal services and transfer pricing
Data analysis[edit]
Due to its size PwC is able to contribute data analysis to a wide range of areas.

Calculation of the drone market size: PwC published a report stating that the world drone
market will reach close to $127 billion by 2020, with Poland at the forefront of legislation for the
commercial use of unmanned aerial vehicles.[42][43]

PwC coined the phrase E7 to describe the seven emerging economies with the company is
predicting will take over todays G7 nations by the year 2050. Those emerging nations include:
China, Russia, India, Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey and Brazil. [44]

PwC assesses the risk premiums of countries, an important factor in analyzing the valuation
of a business.[45] [46]

The company analyzes pay parity, the comparative salaries for men versus women. In early
2017 PwC found in one study that it could take 24 years to close the gender pay gap. [47]

PwC publishes the Low Carbon Economy Index which tracks the extent to which the G20
countries are reducing carbon intensity, which is emissions linked to energy usage. [48] [49] [50] [51]

The Economy of the Sea is a long-term analysis project of PwC Portugal. Launched ten
years ago, Economy of the Sea is part of the HELM project to create an integrated approach to
the successful and sustainable blue economy.[52] [53]

PwC developed the Total Impact Measurement and Management (TIMM) framework
designed to assist companies in carrying out impact studies which will help them put a value on
all a companys activities, products or services. Mervyn King, Chairman of the International
Integrated Reporting Council described it as a huge step forward in assisting companies in
thinking on an integrated basis and enabling them to do business in the 21st century. It also
helps to change mindsets to take a holistic perspective and move towards Integrated
Reporting.[54] [55]
Offices[edit]
PwC has partners in approximately 800 offices across 157 countries with 200,000 employees. [56][57]
Notable offices: Seaport office tower in Boston;[58] and Magwa Crescent Waterfall City tower
in Midrand, South Africa.[59]

Notable PwC office buildings

Cairo, Egypt

Tower 185, Frankfurt, Germany

Figueroa at Wilshire, Los Angeles,

California, US
Lima, Peru

Freshwater Place, Melbourne, Australia

Oslo, Norway
Kingdom Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Kasumigaseki Building, Tokyo, Japan

Warsaw, Poland
Torre PwC, Madrid, Spain

Accra, Ghana

Auckland, New Zealand

The following list of revenue according to region is from the PwC Global Annual Review: 2016. [60]

Revenue
Region
(2016)
Asia $4.391 billion

Australia, Pacific Islands and New Zealand $1.452 billion

Central and Eastern Europe $678 million

Western Europe $12.339 billion

Middle East and Africa $1.294 billion

North America and the Caribbean $14.916 billion

South and Central America $826 million

Legal structure[edit]
PwC refers to the PwC network and/or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate
legal entity due to local legislative requirements.[61] Much like other professional services firms, each
member firm is financially and legally independent. PwC is co-ordinated by a private company
limited by guarantee under English law, called PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited.[62] In
addition, PwC is registered as a multidisciplinary entity which also provides legal services. [63]

Name[edit]
The PricewaterhouseCoopers name was formed by the combination of the names of Price
Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand, following their merger in 1998. On 20 September 2010,
PricewaterhouseCoopers rebranded as PwC, although the legal name of the firm remained
PricewaterhouseCoopers.[9]

Logo[edit]
The following are the several logos the company has used through the years. The current PwC logo
was introduced in September 2010, when the company changed its trading name from
PricewaterhouseCoopers to PwC. It was designed by Wolff Olins.[64] [65] [66]

The Coopers & Lybrand logo prior to the 1998 merger



The Price Waterhouse logo prior to the 1998 merger

The PricewaterhouseCoopers logo from 1998 to 2010

The PwC logo from 2010 to present

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences[edit]

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has utilized the services of PwC to tally
the votes for the Academy awards since 1935.[67] In addition, the company overseas AMPAS
elections, prepares its financial documents, and is responsible for the groups tax filings. [68]

Academy Awards of 2017[edit]

See also: 89th Academy Awards Best Picture announcement error
At the 89th Academy Awards in 2017 La La Land was incorrectly announced as the winner of Best
Picture after PwC partner, Brian Cullinan gave presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway the
wrong envelope. PwC was responsible for tabulating the results, preparing the envelopes, and
handing them to presenters.[69] It was called "as bad a mess-up as you could imagine."[70] The firm
took "full responsibility" for handing the presenters the wrong envelope and apologized for the error,
[71]
acknowledging that Cullinan and PwC partner Martha Ruiz did not follow protocols for correcting
the error quickly. In March 2017, the board of governors for the Academy voted to retain the services
of accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, despite the mix up, saying new protocols have been
established including greater oversight from PwC's U.S. chairman Tim Ryan. [72]

Sponsorship[edit]
Sports[edit]
PwC sponsors the Canadian Football Leagues Weekly Insights online magazine.[73]
Since 2011 PwC has been sponsoring the Royal Belgian Football Association and the national team,
the Red Devils.[74]
The firm sponsored nine Canadian athletes in 2011: cyclist Ryder Hesjedal; Olympic gold medalist
speed skaters Charles and Franois Hamelin; wrestler Carol Huynh; para-alpine skier Matt Hallatt;
and four additional athletes.[75]
PwC has sponsored the Dutch national soccer team, since 1992. [76]
In May 2016 PwC agreed to renew their sponsorship of the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) for
four more years. The sponsorship includes PwC continuing to be the official sponsor of the Ireland
U20, Ireland U19 and Ireland U18 teams.[77]
PwC extended its sponsorship of the Players Championship of the Professional Golfers
Association (PGA) through 2017. The company will be one of only two Proud Partners of the
annual PGA Tour event which is held every year at TPC Sawgrass.[78]

Awards[edit]
PwC sponsors Canadas CFO of the year award.[79]
PwC created The Building Public Trust in Corporate Reporting Awards (BPTA) in 2002 which now
covers the FTSE 100, FTSE 250, private, public and charity sectors for a total of 18 awards. [80]

Startups[edit]
In 2010 Startupbootcamp Copenhagen announced that PwC Denmark signed a sponsorship
agreement with them, making PwC its first signed sponsor.[81]
In 2010 PwC began sponsoring the international non-profit organization Slush which organizes
events that match entrepreneurs and technology talent with major corporations and investors. [82]
PwC sponsors Fast Growth Icons, a conference which highlights insights from the builders of
successful businesses; a group of attendees who are founders of companies with rapid revenue
growth; and offering tips and hands-on learning in founder-to-founder sessions. [83]
The PwC Social Entrepreneurs Club sponsors members through community partners including the
School for Social Entrepreneurs and Social Enterprise UK. [84]

Others[edit]
In February 2011 PwC was the sponsor of the televised debate The Future of Employment: The
West Isn't Working, filmed at the World Economic Forums annual meeting.[85] The company has
been a strategic partner with the WEF since the 1980s.[86]
PwC sponsors a Charitable Foundation, founded in 1949, whose mission it is to make contributions
to the people of the firm in times of financial hardship through the people who care fund, and to
nonprofit organizations that support and promote education and humanitarianism. [87]
In 2016 PwC was a sponsor of the APEC CEO Summit held in Peru.[88] [89]
The company is a sponsor of the Mobile World Congress,[90] and the World Economic Forum.[91][92]
PwC sponsors PwC Pantomime, a theater group that produces a full scale show whose aim is to
bring joy to children from inner-city schools and charities. [93] In 2017 their production of Hansel and
Gretel was its 31stpantomime production as part of its community Affairs Program that supports the
local community.[94]
The firm is partners with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of the Netherlands.[95]
PwC sponsors the Buy Social Campaign, the flagship campaign of Social Enterprise UK, which
builds markets for social enterprises in the public and private sectors. The Buy Social Corporate
Challenge is co-sponsored by PwC, Social Enterprise UK, and the Cabinet Office to bring high-
profile businesses together to commit to spending 1 billion with social enterprises by 2020. [96]
The firm supports Londons Old Vic Theater.[97]
Wellbeing of Women is a non-profit organization that works to improve the health of women and
babies, supported by PwC.[98]
PwC sponsors the yearly UK Private Business Awards.[99][100]

Corporate affairs and culture[edit]

General corporate culture[edit]
Compared to the other three of the Big Four, PwC is said to have a less competitive
atmosphere. [101] According to one observer, the core to the business is how the firm values and
promotes difference by building an environment where everyone can be themselves. [102] The
company employs large numbers of young workers, with 80 percent of their work-force millennials.
PwC uses education to bridge the culture gap between generations. [103] The firm also implements the
Connect-Embed-Improve plan to promote employee engagement. [104] PwC relies on employees
sharing of knowledge and learning. Senior staff facilitate learning. Teaching the next generation what
they know is one of the keys that ensures that PwC can bring value to its clients. [105]
PwC is committed to diversity in the workplace, holding an annual Global Diversity Week. [106]
In order to promote inclusion, diversity, equality, respect and tolerance in a respectful work
environment PwC the Netherlands launched GLEE: Gay Lesbian and Everybody Else network. [107]

Charitable foundation[edit]
The PwC Charitable Foundation, a separate entity from the firm, shares similar goals, according to
Frank Gaudia, a trustee and member of the Board of Directors for the Foundation. The Foundation
focuses on humanitarianism, education for children, and veterans.[108]

Sustainable Development Goals: The World Business Council for

Sustainable Development[edit]
PwC published a report including data on SDG-sustainable development goals awareness and on
who is perceived as the entity responsible for bringing SDGs to the marketplace. [109]

Supporting education[edit]
In 2015 PwC gave a donation of $100,000 to the Florida International University College of Business
and the School of Accounting.[110]

Workers' rights[edit]
In 2011 PwC was appointed to conduct independent monitoring of the Tourism Development and
Investment Company, TDICs Employment Practices Policy, (EPP), which had already been
introduced in 2009. Abu Dhabis TDIC was the first major developer in the Middle East to introduce
such a policy, designed to protect the welfare of workers employed by contractors and sub-
contractors.[111] [112] [113]

Flexible working hours policy[edit]

Employees at PwC can suggest their own working hours, but the firm does not have to comply. [114] [115]

Global "Code of Conduct"[edit]

In 2002 PwC published the accounting professions first global Code of Conduct to help its
employees around the world maintain a corporate culture of ethics and integrity. [116] In November
2016 the company updated their Code of Conduct. [117]

Strategy&[edit]
Strategy& and PwC publish Strategy + Business, an online magazine discussing aspects of
business strategy and related issues.[118] [119]

Partnerships[edit]
ID2020[edit]
In May 2016, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, PwC was one of the principal
sponsors of the inaugural ID2020 Summit. The summit brought together over 400 people to discuss
how to provide digital identity to all, a defined Sustainable Development Goal including to 1.5bn
people living without any form of recognized identification. [120] Experts in blockchain and other
cryptographic technology joined with representatives of technical standards bodies to identify how
technology and other private sector expertise could achieve the goal. [121] [122]

HeForShe[edit]
PwC is a founding partner with the UN Women HeForShe IMPACT 10x10x10 Initiative to
advance gender equality.[123] The initiative created an online course featuring Michael Kimmel, an
SUNY Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies at Stony Brook University which
aims to increase awareness of unconscious gender bias in corporate life. [124] Emma Watson, British
actress and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, is a high-profile supporter of the UN Womens
HeForShe campaign.[125]

Google[edit]
In 2014 Google announced its partnership with PwC to drive cloud adoption among businesses.
[126]
Partnering with Google is part of PwCs decision to begin to move its own business to the cloud.
[127] [128]
PwC is one of three million business customers using paid services through G Suite,
previously known as Apps for Work.[129]

Coursera[edit]
The company, in partnership with Coursera, launched an on-line five-course educational platform
called Data Analysis and Presentation Skills. [130]

HPE[edit]
PwC began to include the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) DNS Malware Analytics (DMA) in its
Security Assessment Services portfolio.[131]

DXC Solutions[edit]
IT provider DXC Solutions (formerly CSC Partners) with PwC to bring digital transformation solutions
to businesses.[132]

Oracle[edit]
In January 2017 Oracle and PwC announced their international collaboration to offer IFRS 9
compliance solutions.[133]

SAP-ERP[edit]
Karim Textiles Limited, a division of Purbani Group, signed a partnership agreement with PwC in
February, 2017 to implement SAP-ERP.[134]

Salesforce-NSI[edit]
In November 2016 PwC acquired technology/consulting firm NSI DMCC, Salesforces largest
implementation partner in the Middle East.[135]

Microsoft[edit]
In 2013 PwC and Microsoft Corp. formed a strategic alliance to help companies engaged in
enterprise transformation projects using Microsoft Business Solutions technology. In 2016 PwC
joined with Microsoft in India to bring the services of both companies to the business community in
India.[136]

United Nations[edit]
PwC partners with the United Nations to help keep the international organizations monitoring
systems up to date.[137] The two organizations also teamed up to create a course about unconscious
biases.[138]

Staff[edit]
From 2010 until 2016, the number of employees worldwide rose from a total of about 160,000 to
over 223,000. The largest percentage of workers are employed in Europe. [139] PwC emphasises the
role CEOs play in the transformation of companies to meet the needs of the 21 st century
marketplace.[140]
The following is a chart of the number of employees in each region of the world as of Q1 2017. [141]

Region Number of Employees

Asia 47,090

Australia, Pacific Islands and New

7,339
Zealand

Central and Eastern Europe 8,432

Middle East and Africa 12,861

North America and the Caribbean 53,656

South and Central America 12,861

Western Europe 65,870

Alumni[edit]
The firm's notable alumni are as follows:

Phil Knight - Founder Nike, Inc.[142]

Ed Bastian- CEO Delta Air Lines[143]

Rich Kramer- Chairman, President and CEO of The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company[144]

Brad Tilden- CEO and Chairman of Alaska Airlines[145]

Sir Ian Powell- Chairman of Capita, an outsourcing company.[146]

Wendell Weeks - President Corning Inc.[147]

Mike Dooley - author, speaker and entrepreneur[148]

Tony Harrington- CEO MinterEllison[149]

Awards[edit]
PwC was ranked #175 on Forbes Canadas Best Employers list, #5 on their Americas Largest
Private Companies list, and #256 on their Americas Best Employers list. [150]
Advertising Age named PwC Digital Services Experience Center one of the four best places to work
in advertising and media in 2016.[151]
International Accounting Bulletin awarded PwC the Audit Innovation of the Year award for 2016. [152]
PwC Singapore won the Best Practice Award in 2016 from the Institute of Singapore Chartered
Accountants.[153]
The Australian Financial Review Client Choice Awards recognized PwC with the Market Leader
Australia award for 2017.[154]
PwC Australia has been recognized by clients as Market Leader at the Financial Review Client
Choice Awards 2016.[155]
In 2016, Brand Finance named PwC as the strongest business to business brand, and one of the
worlds 10 most powerful brands in their annual index.[156]
PwC US was named one of Fortunes 100 Best Companies to Work For for the 11th consecutive
year of 13 years on the list.[157]
PwC India won the 2016 AMCF (Association of Management Consulting Firms) Global Spotlight
Award in the Growth Strategies category.[158]

Controversies[edit]
Gender employment discrimination[edit]
Main article: Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins
In 1989, the United States Supreme Court held that Price Waterhouse must prove by a
preponderance of the evidence that the decision regarding employment would have been the same
if sex discrimination had not occurred. The accounting firm failed to prove that the same decision to
postpone Ann Hopkins's promotion to partnership would have still been made in the absence of sex
discrimination, and therefore, the employment decision constituted sex discrimination under Title VII
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The significance of the Supreme Court's ruling was twofold. First, it
established that gender stereotyping is actionable as sex discrimination. Second, it established
the mixed-motive framework as an evidentiary framework for proving discrimination under a
disparate treatment theory even when lawful reasons for the adverse employment action are also
present.[159] Ann Hopkins's candidacy for partnership was put on indefinite hold. She eventually
resigned and sued the company for occupational sexism, arguing that her lack of promotion came
after pressure to walk, talk, dress, and act more "femininely."[160]
In 1990 a Federal district judge in Washington ordered the firm to make Hopkins a partner. It is the
first time in which a court awarded partnership in a professional company as a remedy for sexual or
race-based discrimination.[161]
Following the suit, the firm has received media attention due to its discriminatory labor practices
towards males as well. Although incidents of such labor marginalization take place rarely, there were
several cases of unfair work treatment.[162]

Tax issues[edit]
PwC received $55m from Caterpillar Inc. to develop a tax avoidance scheme, according to
an investigation of the senate. Profits valued at $8bn were shifted from the US to Switzerland
which allegedly made it possible to save more than $2.4bn in US taxes over a decade. In
Switzerland profits were taxed at 4%.[163] A PricewaterhouseCoopers partner who was involved in
designing the tax savings plan commented: We'll all be retired when this ... comes up on
audit.[164]

In 1990, the US Internal Revenue Service seized most of the assets of Willie Nelson,
claiming he owed $32 million in back taxes, including penalties and interest. He sued Price
Waterhouse, contending that they put him into tax shelters that were later disallowed by the IRS.
[165]
The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount.[166]
American International Group Inc.[edit]
BusinessWeek said that PwC was American International Group Inc.'s auditor through years of
"questionable dealings." AIG on 30 March 2005 said that deals with a Barbados-based insurance
company, for instance, may have been incorrectly accounted for over the past 14 years, because an
AIG-affiliated company may have been secretly covering that insurer's losses. [167]
BusinessWeek said that PwC appears to have "dropped the ball" on the deals between AIG
and Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s General Re Corp. General Re transferred $500 million in anticipated
claims and premiums to AIG. BusinessWeek asked: "Did the auditor do its job by verifying that AIG
was assuming risk on claims beyond the $500 million, thus allowing AIG to account for the deal as
insurance? That's Accounting 101 in any reinsurance transaction."[167]
PwC was also criticised by several witnesses during the investigation into AIG's collapse, after the
insurer was unable to fulfil its collateral obligations to Goldman Sachs. The insurer was expected to
cover the difference in value between the credit default swap contracts it had sold to Goldman
Sachs, however the head of the unit at AIG disagreed with the valuation that Goldman presented.
According to a memo published by Business Insider, witnesses wondered how PwC was signing off
on the accounts for both AIG and Goldman Sachs, when they were using different valuation methods
for the swaps contracts (and therefore booked different values for them in their accounts). [168]

ChuoAoyama Suspension[edit]
ChuoAoyama Audit Corporation ( Ch-Aoyama Kansa Hjin). was the Japanese
?

affiliate of assurance service of PwC from April 2000 to 2006. [169] In May 2006, the Financial Services
Agency of Japan suspended ChuoAoyama from provision of some statutory auditing services for two
months[170] following the collapse of cosmetics company Kanebo, of which three of the partners were
found assisting with accounting fraud for boosting earnings by the company of about $1.9 billion over
the course of five years. The accountants got suspended prison terms up to eighteen months from
the Tokyo District Court after the judge deemed them to have played a "passive role" in the crime.
[171]
The suspension was the first ever imposed on a major accounting firm in the country. Many of the
firm's largest clients were forced to find replacement auditors before the suspension began that July.
[172]

Shortly after the suspension of ChuoAoyama, PwC acted quickly to stem any possible client attrition
as a result of the scandal. It set up the PricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata, and some of
ChuoAoyama's accountants (but most of the international divisions) moved to the new firm.
ChuoAoyama resumed operations on 1 September, 2006 under the Misuzu name. However, by this
point the two firms combined had 30% fewer clients than did ChuoAoyama prior to its suspension.
Misuzu was dissolved in July 2007.[173][174]

Tyco settlement[edit]
In July 2007, PwC agreed to pay US$229 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by
shareholders of Tyco International Ltd. over a multibillion-dollar accounting fraud. The chief
executive and chief financial officer of Tyco were found guilty of looting $600 million from the
company.[175]

Satyam case[edit]
In January 2009 PwC was criticised,[176][177][178][179][180] along with the promoters of Satyam, an Indian IT
firm listed on the NASDAQ, in a $1.5 billion fraud.[181] PwC wrote a letter to the board of directors of
Satyam that its audit may be rendered "inaccurate and unreliable" due to the disclosures made by
Satyam's (ex) Chairman and subsequently withdrew its audit opinions. [182] PwC's US arm "was the
reviewer for the U.S. filings for Satyam."[183] Consequently, lawsuits have been filed in the US with
PwC as a defendant. Two partners of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Srinivas Talluri and Subramani
Gopalakrishnan, have been charged by India's Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with
the Satyam scandal. Since the scandal broke out, Subramani Gopalakrishnan has retired from the
firm after reaching mandatory retirement age, while Talluri remains on suspension from the firm. [184][185]
In 2015 PwC India said they were disappointed with court judgement of the case saying, As we
have said many times, there has never been any evidence presented that either of our former
partners S Gopalakrishnan or Srinivas Talluri were involved in or were aware of the management-led
fraud at Satyam. We understand that Gopal and Talluri are considering filing an appeal against this
verdict."[186]

Yukos prosecutions[edit]
In July 2007 Russian authorities cleared PwC of any wrongdoing in regard to its audit of bankrupt oil
company Yukos. PwC withdrew its audit opinions for the giant oil company, stating that it now thinks
that Yukos former management could have supplied incorrect or inaccurate information. [187] [188]
In 2010, it was revealed that the Russian government place pressure on PwC to withdraw audits in
order to help the defense of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, president and controlling shareholder of Yukos
until his arrest in 2003, who was accused of money laundering and embezzlement. [189][190]

Global Trust Bank Ltd and DSQ Software[edit]

India's accounting standards agency ICAI is investigating partners of PwC for professional
negligence[177] in the now-defunct Global Trust Bank Ltd. case of 2007. Like Satyam, Global Trust
Bank was also based in Hyderabad. This led to the RBI banning PwC from auditing any financial
company for over a year.[191][192][193] PwC was also associated with the accounting scandal at DSQ
Software[194] in India. Following the Satyam scandal, the Mumbai-based Small Investor Grievances
Association (SIGA) has requested the Indian stock market regulator SEBI to ban PwC permanently
and seize its assets in India alleging more scandals like "Ketan Parekh stock manipulations." [195]

Transneft Russia case[edit]

Upon the completion of the construction of the ESPO (East Siberia-Pacific Ocean) pipeline
by Transneftin December 2010, an official report of the Audit Chamber of the Russian Federation
suggested that $4 billion was stolen by Transneft insiders. [196] One Federation Council Speaker,
Sergei Mironov, called for an investigation. Alexei Navalny, a minority Transneft shareholder and
lawyer, accused the company of wrongdoing in his personal blog, and criticized PwC, Transneft's
auditor, of ignoring his warnings. PwC denied wrongdoing, stating that, We believe there are
absolutely no grounds for such allegations, and we stand behind our work for OAO AK Transneft. [197]

Northern Rock[edit]
In 2007, PwC was criticised by the Treasury Select Committee of the Parliament of the United
Kingdom for helping Northern Rock, a client of the firm, to sell its mortgage assets while also acting
as its auditor.[198][199]In 2011, a House of Lords inquiry criticized PwC for not drawing attention to the
risks in the business model followed by Northern Rock, which was rescued by the UK government
during the financial crisis.[200][201]

JP Morgan Securities audit[edit]

In 2012, the Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board (AADB) of the UK fined PwC a record
1.4m for wrongly reporting to the Financial Services Authority that JP Morgan Securities had
complied with client money rules which protects client funds. The accountants neglected to check
whether JP Morgan had the correct systems in place, and failed to gather sufficient evidence to form
opinions on the issue, and as a result, failed to report that JP Morgan failed to hold client money
separate from JP Morgan's money. It is the greatest penalty administered to a professional
accountancy firm in the UK.[202]

Water privatisation in Delhi[edit]

PwC was found to be unethically favored by the World Bank in a bid to privatize the water
distribution system of Delhi, India, an effort that was alleged as corrupt by investigators.[203] When
bidding took place, PwC repeatedly failed in each round, and the World Bank in each case
pressured PwC to be pushed to the next round and eventually win the bid. The effort at privatization
fell through when an investigation was conducted by Arvind Kejriwal and the non-governmental
organization (NGO) Parivartan in 2005.[203] After submitting a Right to Information (RTI) request,
Parivartan received 9000 pages of correspondence and consultation with the World Bank, where it
was revealed that the privatization of Delhi's water supply would provide salaries of $25,000 a month
to four administrators of each of the 21 water zones, which amounted to over $25 million per year,
increasing the budget by over 60% and water taxes 9 times.[204][205]
The Delhi Jal Board (DJB), which administers the water system of Delhi, was first approached by
Parivartan in November 2004, following a report by the newspaper The Asian Age, where the
scheme was revealed to the public for the first time. [204][205] The DJB denied the existence of the
project, but after an appeal, the RTI request was granted. The documents revealed that the project
began in 1998, in complete secrecy within the DJB administration.[204][205] The DJB approached the
World Bank for a loan to improve the water system, which it approved, and the effort began with a
$2.5 million consultation loan. The Delhi government could have easily provided the money, and the
interest rate of 12% that was to be loaned by the World Bank could have been raised on capital
markets for 6%.[204][205] Following the consultation, 35 multi-national companies bid, of which six were
to be short listed. When PwC was in 10th place, the World Bank said that at least one company
should be from a developing country, and since PwC made the bid from its Kolkata office, it was
dubbed an "Indian" company, and its rank was dropped to 6th.[203] When PwC failed in the second
round, the World Bank pressured the DJB to start over with a fresh round of bidding. Only one
company succeeded in the new round that was not PwC, and the World Bank had the lowest marks
from an evaluator thrown out. The contract was awarded to PwC in 2001. [206] Following the
investigation by Parivartan, a campaign was waged by Kejriwal, Aruna Roy, and other activists
across Delhi, and the DJB withdrew the loan application to the World Bank. [203][204][205]

Cattles[edit]
In 2013 Cattles plc brought a legal action against PwC in the UK in respect of the 2006 and 2007
audits claiming that they had failed to carry out adequate investigations. [207] Cattles, a UK consumer
finance company, later discovered control weaknesses which caused its loan book to be materially
overstated in its balance sheet; having been listed as a FTSE250 company, it subsequently lost its
listing. PwC disputed this legal claim.[208] The claim was settled out of court on undisclosed terms.[209]
The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) issued a fine of 2.3m on PwC and ordered the firm to pay
750,000 costs following their investigation of the 2007 audits of Cattles and its principal trading
subsidiary. PwC admitted their conduct fell significantly short of the standards reasonably to be
expected of a member firm in respect of the 2007 financial statements. The FRC said that PwC had
insufficient audit evidence as to the adequacy of loan loss provisions. [210]

PCAOB report on audit inspections[edit]

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) report on audit work carried out by PwC
in 2014 in respect of US public companies identified significant deficiencies in 17 of 58 audits
examined.[211] The PCAOB report on work carried out in 2015 identified significant deficiencies in 12
of 55 audits examined.[212]

Quinn Insurance[edit]
PwC Ireland is being sued by the joint administrators of Quinn Insurance Limited (QIL) for 1bn.
Having been audited by PwC for the years 2005 to 2008, QIL went into administration in 2010. The
administrators allege that PwC should have identified a material understatement of QILs provisions
for claims.[213] [214]

Connaught plc[edit]
Connaught plc, a UK former FTSE 250 Index outsourcing company operating in property
maintenance for the social housing and public sector, was put into administration on 2010 after
reporting material losses. In 2017, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) severely reprimanded PwC
and its audit partner following an investigation of their conduct in respect of the 2009 audit of
Connaught. PwC was fined a record 5 million plus costs. [215]

Tesco[edit]
In June 2017 the Financial Reporting Council said there was no "realistic prospect" that a tribunal of
the UK's accountancy watchdog would rule against the auditor PwC concerning its involvement
in Tesco's 2014 case.[216] In 2014 Tesco, a UK retailer, announced that it had overstated profits by
263m, by misreporting discounts with suppliers.[217] In 2015 PwC were replaced as auditors of
Tesco, ending a 32-year engagement, following a tender process to which they did not participate. [218]

Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ[edit]

In 2014, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ was investigated by New York banking regulators over its
role in routing payments for Iranian customers through its New York branch in violation of U.S.
sanctions. It was found that PwC had altered an investigation report on the issue; PwC itself was
fined $25 million in relation to the matter.[219]

Luxembourg Leaks[edit]
Main article: Luxembourg Leaks

One of the tax rulings of Luxembourg Leaks negotiated by PwC

The firm helped multinational companies obtain 548 legal tax rulings in Luxembourg between 2002
and 2010. The rulings provide written assurance that companies tax-saving plans will be seen
favorably by the Luxembourg authorities. The companies saved billions of dollars in taxes with these
arrangements. Some firms payed less than one percent tax on the profits they shifted to
Luxembourg. Employees or former employees of PwC provided documentation of the rulings to
journalists.[220][221] PwC UKs head of tax was before the UK's public accounts committee and was
questioned about lying regarding the marketing of these tax avoidance schemes. He told the
committee the financing, investments and tax structure is legal and well-known to the British
government. If you want to change the Lux tax regime, the politicians could change the Lux tax
regime.[222] The disclosures attracted international attention and comment about tax avoidance
schemes in Luxembourg and other tax havens. The revelations later led to a series of EU-wide
measures aimed at regulating tax avoidance schemes and tax probes into several EU companies.
PwC initiated charges against the two whistleblowers that revealed the LuxLeaks tax controversy. In
March 2017 a Luxembourg appeals court upheld their convictions, but with reduced sentences. [223]

Petrobras Brazil[edit]
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation by Microsoft founder Bill Gates has sued Petrobras and
accounting firm PwC Brazil arm over investment losses due to corruption at the Brazilian oil
company. The filings have also alleged that PwC's Brazil affiliate, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Auditores Independentes, played a significant role by attesting to Petrobras financial statements and
ignoring warnings.[224]

BHS[edit]
PwC in the UK is being investigated by the Financial Reporting Council over its conduct in relation to
the audit of BHS for the year to 30 August 2014. PwC completed their audit of financial statements in
which BHS was described as a going concern days before its sale for 1 to a consortium with no
retail experience. BHS collapsed the following year with a substantial deficit in its pension fund. [225]

MF Global malpractice lawsuit[edit]

In 2016, United States federal judge rejected PwC's bid to dismiss a $1 billion lawsuit accusing the
accounting firm of professional malpractice for helping cause the October 2011 bankruptcy of MF
Global Holdings Ltd, a brokerage once run by former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine.[226][227][228]

BT Italy[edit]
BT Group (British Telecom), a client of PwC, reported in 2017 that profits in its Italian subsidiary had
been over-stated by 530 million. BT reportedly sought the immediate replacement of PwC as
auditors following a breakdown of trust, but had existing commercial relationships with the other Big
4 firms which would have prevented their early appointment. [229] BT subsequently stated that its audit
would be put out to tender to identify a replacement for PwC.[230]

Lezo Case[edit]
PwC Spain is being investigated by the Spanish National Court as part of the Lezo Case for
participating in and profiting from the embezzlement of public funds to illegally finance the People's
Party (PP) political party in the Community of Madrid.[231]

Recognition[edit]
PwC, along with PA Consulting Group, Deloitte and KPMG were the only four consultancy
firms in the UK to be named among the 25 best companies to work for in 2017. [232]

PwC was ranked #9 by Consulting Magazine in the 2016 Best Firms to Work for ranking
published in their September 2016 edition.[233]

Brand Finance ranked PwC among the worlds 500 most valuable brands in 2017. [234]

The company was recognized by The European Diversity Awards as the Most Inclusive
Employer of the Year in 2015.[235]

PwC's Public Sector practice was awarded the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in
2014.[236]

PwC received the full five stars on the BITC Corporate Responsibility Index for several years,
and achieved it again in 2016 with a score of 99%. They were one of only four professional
services companies to do so.[237]

The Vault accounting firm rankings placed PwC 1st in Accounting 50; 1st in Prestige; and 1st in
Overall Diversity.[238]

Gartner recognized PwC with a Top Rating for Financial Consulting. [239]

History and milestones

We have a long history of delivering value-added professional services to our clients.
Formed in 1998 from a merger between Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand, PwC has a
history in client services that dates back to the nineteenth century. Both accounting firms
originated in London during the mid 1800s. Today, PwC serves 26 industries. Our industry-
focused services in the fields of assurance, tax, human resources, transactions, performance
improvement and crisis management have helped resolve complex client and stakeholder
issues worldwide. We also apply our expertise and talents to help educational institutions, the
federal government, non-profits and international relief agencies address their unique business
issues.

Below are some key milestones in the history of both firms:

1849 - Samuel Lowell Price sets up in business in London.

1854 - William Cooper establishes his own practice in London, which seven years later
becomes Cooper Brothers.
1865 - Price, Holyland and Waterhouse join forces in partnership.
1874 - Partners change name to Price, Waterhouse & Co.
1898 - Robert H. Montgomery, William M. Lybrand, Adam A. Ross Jr. and his brother T.
Edward Ross form Lybrand, Ross Brothers and Montgomery.
1957 - Cooper Brothers & Co (UK), McDonald, Currie and Co (Canada) and Lybrand,
Ross Bros & Montgomery (US) merge to form Coopers & Lybrand.
1982 - Price Waterhouse World Firm forms.
1990 - Coopers & Lybrand merges with Deloitte Haskins & Sells in a number of
countries around the world.
1998 - Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand merge to create
PricewaterhouseCoopers.
2002 - PricewaterhouseCoopers' partners approve sale of PricewaterhouseCoopers
Consulting to IBM.
2004 - PricewaterhouseCoopers implements the Connected Thinking methodology.
2010 - PricewaterhouseCoopers formally shortens its brand name to PwC but legally
remains PricewaterhouseCoopers.
About PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) LLP
New York-headquartered professional services firm PwC LLP is the U.S. member
firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited, whose network of firms
operate in 157 countries, employ more than 223,000 people, and serve more than
90 percent of the FT Global 500 (a snapshot of the world's 500 largest firms).

In the U.S., PwC focuses on audit and assurance, tax, and consulting services.
Additionally, in the U.S., PwC concentrates on 16 key industries, and provides
targeted services that include-but are not limited to-human resources, deals,
forensics, and consulting services. By revenue, it's the second-largest
accounting firm in the country.
 Although the firm's reach is vast these days, in the beginning it was just Samuel
Lowell Price, a London accountant who hung out his shingle in 1849. He was
subsequently joined by two more accountants, and in 1865, the partnership
renamed itself Price, Waterhouse and Company, which grew to become a
prominent international network of independent member firms. The "Cooper"
comes from William Cooper, another London accountant who started a firm with
his brothers in 1854. A century later, the aptly named Cooper Brothers merged
with two North American firms (Lybrand, Ross Brothers & Montgomery in the U.S.
and McDonald, Currie & Company in Canada). The combined firm was named
Coopers & Lybrand, and in 1998, it merged with Price Waterhouse. The tie-up was
a blockbuster: both C&L and Price Waterhouse were ranked among the top-six
accounting firms in the world.

Affiliated Companies

PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services LLC (PwC Advisory Services)

PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) Asia (Consulting)

PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) International Ltd.

PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) LLP (UK)

PwC Corporate Finance LLP

Competitors

Deloitte LLP

Ernst & Young LLP (EY)

Grant Thornton LLP

KPMG LLP

A brief history of PwC

PricewaterhouseCoopers was created on 1 July 1998 by the merger of two firms -
Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand - each with historical roots going back
some 160 years. Set out below are some key milestones in the history of both
firms.
1849
Samuel Lowell Price sets up in business in London
1854
William Cooper establishes his own practice in London, which seven years later
becomes Cooper Brothers
1865
Price, Holyland and Waterhouse join forces in partnership 1874 Name changes to Price,
Waterhouse & Co.
1898
Robert H. Montgomery, William M. Lybrand, Adam A. Ross Jr. and his brother T. Edward
Ross form Lybrand, Ross Brothers and Montgomery
1957
Cooper Brothers & Co (UK), McDonald, Currie and Co (Canada) and Lybrand, Ross
Bros & Montgomery (US) merge to form Coopers & Lybrand
1982
Price Waterhouse World Firm formed
1990
Coopers & Lybrand merges with Deloitte Haskins & Sells in a number of countries
around the world
1 July 1998
Worldwide merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand to create
PricewaterhouseCoopers
1 January 2003
PricewaterhouseCoopers UK adopts Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) status
September 2010
The trading name of the firm was shortened to PwC, along with the adoption of a new
visual identity
Our UK website has more information on who we are, including our latest Annual
Report and details on our Leadership. For additional information on PwC, please
contact Emma on the details below:

Emma Thorogood
PwC | Head of Communications
Email: emma.thorogood@uk.pwc.com
Tel: 020 7213 8593
Mobile: 07990 563 100
1251 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10020
U.S.A.

Company Perspectives:
PricewaterhouseCoopers is the world's largest professional services
organization. Drawing on the knowledge and skills of 155,000 in 150
countries, we help our clients solve complex business problems and
measurably enhance their ability to build value, manage risk and
improve performance.

History of PricewaterhouseCoopers
The international partnership of PricewaterhouseCoopers is the
largest accounting and business consultancy firm in the world. With
approximately 140,000 employees in 150 countries in 1999, the
company offers auditing services, tax and legal advice, financial
advice, business process outsourcing, and management consulting
services. The partnership was created in 1998 from the merger of two
Big Six accounting firms: Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand.
History of Coopers & Lybrand
Accounting practices were necessitated by the increasingly complex
and sophisticated needs of businesses during the early 19th-century
Industrial Revolution. Accounting as a profession emerged over several
decades in the United States, and by 1898, the year in which Coopers
& Lybrand was founded, there was not yet a single school of
accounting. Furthermore, the only texts available were British and
these often failed to address American problems and practices.
Accountants therefore received their training on the job, initially as
bookkeepers, the most able and talented ones trained by their
supervisor in accounting practices and procedures. This was the route
taken by the four American founders of Coopers & Lybrand: William M.
Lybrand, brothers T. Edward Ross and Adam A. Ross, and Robert H.
Montgomery. All had worked in the same firm of Heins, Lybrand & Co.
in Philadelphia and had received the same training; all four would be
active in establishing accounting as a profession. The Ross brothers,
Adam and Edward, were pioneer members in 1897 of the Pennsylvania
Association of Public Accountants, one of the few professional
associations for accountants in the country. During this time, a British
accounting firm known as Cooper Bros. & Co., founded by William
Cooper, was celebrating its 44th anniversary. Nearly 60 years later, the
American and the British firms would merge into Coopers & Lybrand
International.
The four American employees of the Heins office pooled their
resources, and on January 1, 1898 they opened a two-room, two-desk
business in Philadelphia. Until 1973, the company would be known as
Lybrand, Ross Bros. & Montgomery. Hours were extremely long, almost
always beyond the official nine hours per day, Monday through Friday.
For many years, young men hired by the firm would receive $7 a day
and were expected to work evenings and be on call during weekends.
From the start, the firm had a reputation for high professional
standards, which the four partners attributed to the example of their
former chief, John Heins. Also from the start, clients were plentiful.
Outside of his regular accounting duties, Adam A. Ross, who as an
apprentice in Heins's office had taken part in the first regular audit of
a bank by a public accountant in Philadelphia's history, lobbied for
state legislation mandating certification for public accountants, a
cause that his brother and partner, T. Edward Ross, would also
espouse. Partners in the firm also gave lectures in accountancy in the
evenings and were hard at work persuading the University of
Pennsylvania to establish a night school in accountancy, which finally
happened in 1902. Robert Montgomery undertook the first U.S.
textbook on accountancy, published in 1905, while also that year
Lybrand contributed several articles to the new Journal of
Accountancy, establishing the principles of the accounting profession.
That was just the beginning of the many contributions the four
partners would make over the years to the professionalization of their
field.
Barely two years after the firm of Lybrand, Ross Bros. & Montgomery
was founded, it was already necessary to move into larger facilities in
Philadelphia. By 1902, the firm's first branch office was established in
New York City, followed by another in Pittsburgh in 1908. In its initial
forays into tax consulting, the company assisted in the drafting of the
first federal income tax law in 1913, and a member of the firm, Walter
Staub, wrote a seminal essay, Income Tax Guide, explaining the
pending tax legislation. In 1917 Montgomery published the classic (and
continuously updated until 1929) Income Tax Procedure 1917. When the
author established a tax practice in the New York office in 1918, he
was immediately besieged by anxious customers.
In 1919, Lybrand, Ross Bros. & Montgomery decided to expand their
company into the District of Columbia. During the year and a half in
which the United States participated in World War I, Montgomery
served on Bernard Baruch's War Industries Board in Washington and
also on the Board of Appraisers of the War Department; other firm
members served on the Liberty Loan committee and engaged in other
war efforts.
By the end of the war, the professionalization of accountancy and its
indispensability to the country's economic structure, were established.
The greatly expanded firm of Lybrand, Ross Bros. & Montgomery,
pacesetters in the accounting profession, were demanding college
degrees of their job applicants. Because of the paucity of accounting
schools at universities and colleges, the firm was willing to take on
college graduates with little or no background in accounting,
subjecting them, once hired, to a rigorous two-year night school
program of training. Accounting being an exclusively male profession
during this time, the company hired only men.
During the 1920s, the firm experienced rapid expansion. Branches
were established in the center of the vital automobile industry, Detroit,
in 1920, and as far away as Seattle. In 1924, when the firm merged
with the accounting company of Klink, Bean & Co., offices opened in
Los Angeles and San Francisco. Also that year, an office was
established in Berlin, Germany, followed by a Paris office in 1926 and a
London office in 1929, the year of the stock market crash. This would
mark the beginning of the firm's globalization that would eventually
result in branches in over 120 countries worldwide.
The Great Depression was both bane and blessing to the accounting
firm of Lybrand, Ross Bros. & Montgomery. The greatly expanded firm,
employing hundreds of staff, was faced with shrinking business
opportunities as financial institutions and corporations collapsed and
went bankrupt. On the other hand, throughout the country and more
importantly, on Capitol Hill, the crash was blamed on the lack of
independent auditing of the stock exchange. With a new president
installed in 1933, Congress established the Securities and Exchange
Commission, the regulatory agency for public corporations and the
stock exchange, which resulted in a plethora of auditing activities for
the firm. The company also became involved in New Deal projects,
serving, for instance, as independent auditors for the Tennessee Valley
Authority after 1944. Throughout the Depression years, expansion of
the company continued, with branch offices opening up in Illinois,
Texas, and Kentucky. In 1935 Robert Montgomery became the
president of the prestigious American Institute of Accountants.
During World War II over 400 employees of Lybrand, Ross Bros. &
Montgomery served in the Armed Forces. These accountants in
uniform, along with 18 administrative assistants, received entertaining
newsletters from the company wherever they were stationed; in the
end, six members of the firm lost their lives in the conflict.
Remarkably, the London and Paris branches of the firm stayed open for
business throughout the war, with only the Berlin office having closed
down in 1938.
By its 50th anniversary in 1948, the company employed nearly 1,200
staff members and 56 partners. The professionalization of accountancy
by then was complete, the role of accountants in business and
government unquestioned. The company's evolution in the postwar
years therefore would be marked by an enormous expansion in the
company's array of services and the continued internationalization of
the firm.
Lybrand, Ross Bros. & Montgomery emerged from the war one of the
largest accounting firms in the United States. Times were changing,
however, and no accounting firm could afford to restrict itself to
traditional auditing and accounting services. In 1952 the firm entered
a new arena when it started a management consulting service for its
clients in the banking and big business world. This was the first of
what would become a wide array of consulting services as well as
information services and special software packages with the advent of
personal computers. While these services by no means supplanted
traditional auditing and accounting, they had a significant impact on
the firm. By 1974 the firm was the first to establish a career track in
accounting for those with computer expertise.
The year 1957 marked the establishment of the European Common
Market. Soon thereafter, a merger resulted in Coopers & Lybrand
International, consisting initially of the firm's Canadian and British
branch firms. While all foreign branches of the firm would bear the
name Coopers & Lybrand, the company in the United States retained
its original name, Lybrand, Ross Bros. & Montgomery, until 1973. That
year, the firm's management decided in favor of adopting a single
name for the entire global network of branch companies, which by then
were located on all five continents. While the firms, in over 120
countries, remained autonomous, they shared common goals and
policies.
Since 1971, Coopers & Lybrand headquarters have remained in the hub
of the financial and business world, New York City, with an important
office and political action committee located in Washington, D.C. By
1977 Coopers & Lybrand was ranked the third largest accounting
company in the United States and was still among the Big Six
accounting firms by 1993. In 1981, Coopers & Lybrand became the first
U.S. accounting firm to establish a foothold in China. The following
year, the company played an important role in the breakup of the $115
billion telephone monopoly, AT&T. Despite the severity of the 1990s
recession, Coopers & Lybrand did well--with a 2.5 percent growth in
revenue in 1991, the worst year of the recession--partly due to its rapid
adaptation to the changing needs of business and a lack of
dependency on the domestic marketplace. With the fall of communism
in Eastern Europe, Coopers & Lybrand opened offices in Hungary,
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Berlin, and Russia, and remained one of the
few U.S. firms to do business in Eastern Europe.
History of Price Waterhouse
Price Waterhouse was founded in London in 1850 by Samuel Lowell
Price, who wanted to take advantage of England's recent
parliamentary laws requiring the examination of a company's financial
statements and records. The public accounting profession was
growing so rapidly during these years that in 1865 Price took on a
partner, Edwin Waterhouse, to help with the expanding business.
During the late 1860s and 1870s, while primarily working on
arbitrations, bankruptcies, and liquidations, Price and Waterhouse also
developed a practice of introducing borrowers to prospective lenders.
At this time, many privately owned businesses were converted to
public companies and, consequently, reports on earnings signed by
reputable accountants soon became an indispensable ingredient in
any firm's prospectus.
As the 19th century drew to a close, the firm of Price Waterhouse had
garnered a reputation in Britain as one of the leaders of auditing,
accounting, and financial consulting services. And, as many of its
European clients established operations in the United States, Price
Waterhouse sent its own representatives to evaluate the business
ventures and opportunities they were financing in order to protect
investments and shareholders' interests. Although Price had died in
1887, business in the former colonies was so significant that
Waterhouse made the commitment to establish a permanent U.S.
presence. On September 1, 1890, the company opened an office at 45
Broadway Avenue in New York City.
A talented member of the London staff, Lewis D. Jones, was the first
office manager in New York. Faced with developing clients over an
enormous territory that included North, Central, and South America,
and serving the needs of diverse industries such as brewing, mining,
steel, railroad, leather, and packing, Jones soon required an assistant.
Another member of the firm from London, William J. Caesar, arrived
and opened a Chicago office the following year. Caesar's aggressive
style and management ability soon earned him the leadership of the
U.S. operation.

At the turn of the century Arthur Lowes Dickinson succeeded Caesar;

it was Dickinson who made the U.S. office uniquely American in both
outlook and operation. Rather than continuing the practice of bringing
accountants from Britain to serve clients in the United States,
Dickinson focused on hiring native talent. Dickinson also encouraged
his employees to develop their professional creativity. This quest to
break new ground in accounting methods and procedures led to the
firm's creation of consolidated financial statements. After Price
Waterhouse consolidated the accounts of U.S. Steel, the method
gained industrywide acceptance.
The financial report for U.S. Steel was the very first to include
supporting statements and time schedules that reflected significant
balance sheet accounts, such as inventories and long-term debt, and
to provide information on assets, operating funds, payroll statistics,
and additional facts of interest to stockholders. By this method of fair
disclosure, Price Waterhouse set the standard for financial reporting at
the beginning of the 20th century. Price Waterhouse was also the first
to provide client shareholders with quarterly financial data and, in
1903, while the firm conducted its first municipal audit, it also
pioneered efforts to survey the accounting and audit systems of
government organizations. These accomplishments drew attention to
accountancy and the role of public accountants in a rapidly developing
industrialized economy.
As a young accountant working on Price Waterhouse's audit of
Eastman Kodak, George 0. May so attracted the attention of George
Eastman that Eastman offered him a job. May refused and 20-odd years
later, while Eastman was visiting May's office, Eastman remarked,
"What a mistake you would have made had you accepted." May, whom
many people regard as the father of the accounting profession in the
United States, assumed leadership of Price Waterhouse in 1910.
May opened many new offices throughout the United States, and
developed new services for clients. In 1913, immediately after
Congress enacted a federal income tax, May initiated a tax practice.
He also encouraged the firm to provide services for emerging
industries, such as the motion picture and automobile industries. It
was under May's stewardship that the firm was contracted to handle
the balloting of the Academy Awards in 1935 to assure the honesty of
the voting process.
Primarily remembered for his devotion to public service, May
campaigned relentlessly during the 1920s for Congress to enact laws
stipulating that publicly traded companies adopt standard auditing
methods and accounting procedures. May secured the New York Stock
Exchange as a client of Price Waterhouse, and his work there in the
late 1920s and early 1930s led to the formulation and passage of the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934. He retired in 1940 and devoted the
remainder of his life to writing about the accounting profession.
During the 1940s, the firm faced its first major crisis. A highly
profitable drug wholesaler, McKesson & Robbin, Inc., was the victim of
an embezzlement scheme carried out by a senior executive and the
man's three brothers. The scheme, extremely complex and carefully
conceived, eluded detection by the independent auditors from Price
Waterhouse. Although a subsequent investigation indicated that the
firm's auditing procedures were in strict compliance with the law and
the industry's professional standards, the inability of the auditors to
discover the embezzlement was of concern to both the firm and the
industry at large.
When senior partner John C. Scobie, a Scotsman with a reputation for
being scrupulously honest, became head of the firm, he implemented
new auditing procedures which were designed to provide auditors with
more access to a client's operations. Scobie's plan was to improve the
auditor's ability to evaluate whether accounting data reflected the
actual performance of any given company; this, in turn, would enable
auditors to provide advice to clients on the many operational factors
that influence financial results.
After World War II, overseas expansion and investment by companies
previously maintaining a national or even regional profile led to the
demand for Price Waterhouse to develop a stronger international
organization. During this period, the first U.S. senior partner, Percival F.
Brundage, and a native New Zealander, John B. Inglis, acted as co-
leaders of the firm. Their strategy was twofold: to initiate broader
national and international approaches to serving the needs of clients
and to build and improve the firm's operational structure.
In concert with the British arm of the organization, the Price
Waterhouse International Firm--which promoted uniform accounting
standards for all Price Waterhouse offices around the world--was
established in late 1945. A management consulting service, MCS,
otherwise known as the systems department, was founded in 1946 as
part of the evolution of manual accounting systems the firm had been
developing for various clients throughout the years. The importance of
electronic data became increasingly obvious during the war, and the
leadership at Price Waterhouse was quick to recognize the advent of
the computer age. Full-time auditors and data processing professionals
were hired to design charts for account and pro forma financial
statements, develop accounting and various financial systems, and
provide advice on productivity improvements. During these years,
Price Waterhouse was called upon more and more to recommend the
kinds of systems used to organize and produce financial and
management information.
When Brundage resigned as senior partner in 1954 to accept a position
in the Eisenhower Administration, John Inglis took over sole command
and guided the firm into an era of specialization. Since clients more
frequently needed nonauditing services, Inglis created four specialized
divisions, including accounting research, international tax, SEC review,
and an international department. Following the comprehensive revision
of the U.S. tax code in 1954, the tax department developed into one of
the most important of the firm. The firm's success was indisputable--in
1959 its gross income was nearly $28.5 million.
Inglis retired in 1960 and was replaced by Herman W. Bevis, a brilliant
theoretician and writer, who garnered a reputation for leading the
debates on the controversial issues of the day, such as deferred
taxation and investment tax credits. He led Price Waterhouse through
an enormous period of expansion. Within the United States, federal,
state and local governments became important clients of the firm's
services. In the international arena, Price Waterhouse was sought
after by many companies to supply information on foreign business
practices, taxes, and government regulations, and to help assess the
comparability of financial statements. The firm also helped companies
such as Toyota and Sony secure capital from U.S. financial markets by
making sure their financial statements were in full compliance with
the requirements of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
From its earliest days, Price Waterhouse's elite image had helped the
firm bring in blue-chip corporations. Oil and steel industry giants had
always been high profile clients, and over the years their presence
prompted more and more blue-chip companies to want to share in the
prestige of the firm. By the time John C. Biegler became U.S. chairman
in 1969, Price Waterhouse counted almost 100 of the Fortune 500 as
clients.
Yet Biegler's appointment came at a time of dramatic changes not only
for Price Waterhouse but for the accounting profession itself. The
expanding economy the firm knew since World War II had suddenly
vanished, and a creeping inflation and slow national growth ushered in
recession. Dramatic drops in the stock market and futures exchanges
during 1970 led to a decade of financial instability. Moreover, many of
the Big Eight accounting firms were served with lawsuits from
disgruntled owners of failed businesses. These problems led directly to
an increased competition for clients among all the accounting firms.
As a result, Price Waterhouse could no longer rely on its reputation
and high-quality work to secure accounts. In order to compete more
effectively for clients, the firm was forced to develop aggressive hard-
sell marketing techniques, expand the scope and range of its services,
and reduce fees.
When Joseph E. Connor replaced Biegler to lead the firm in 1978, he
succeeded in implementing a specific market-driven strategy which
had immediate payoffs. Connor developed "industry services groups'
which were comprised of specialists with extensive knowledge and
experience in various industries. This strategy helped bring in new
clients. Expanding services in the firm's traditional areas of tax, audit
and management consulting also helped retain many previous clients.
Notwithstanding the success of his strategy, in 1984 Connor met with
chairman Charlie Steel and discussed a merger with Deloitte Haskins
& Sells, another of the Big Eight accounting firms, widely known in
accounting circles as the 'auditors' auditor.' The intention behind the
merger was to create an organization of such proportions that no other
accounting firm could ever again gain a competitive advantage. A
letter of intent was signed on October 11, 1984, and, conditional upon
the approval of the partners, the merger would take place on January
1, 1985. Yet despite Connor and Steele's confidence in the benefits of
such a union, when the balloting was finished the U.S. partners of
Price Waterhouse approved while the influential British part of the firm
vetoed the merger. For both men, it was a personal and professional
defeat. Steel was forced to resign in 1986, while Connor remained as
chairman of the U.S. firm until he was replaced in 1988 by Shaun F.
O'Malley.
The failure of the proposed merger between Price Waterhouse and
Deloitte had raised the possibility of creating a giant accounting firm,
and many of the Big Eight partners discussed little else besides
potential mergers. After Ernst & Whinney merged with Arthur Young on
June 22, 1989, to create Ernst & Young, within weeks four other firms
announced plans to merge: Deloitte Haskins & Sells with Touche Ross,
and Price Waterhouse with Arthur Andersen.
The proposed merger between Price Waterhouse and Andersen
seemed doomed from the start. The Andersen people thought the new
firm should be named Arthur Andersen while the Price Waterhouse
people thought it should be named Price Waterhouse; Andersen
thought it would be acquiring an auditing practice while Price
Waterhouse thought it was acquiring a consulting practice, but neither
firm wanted to give the impression that its services were "acquired' by
the other; and finally, O'Malley and Andersen's chairman, Larry
Weinbach, were new in their positions and just starting to implement
development and marketing strategies for their own respective firms.
O'Malley and Weinbach agreed to halt merger negotiations after three
months.
The year 1990 did not begin auspiciously for Price Waterhouse. In May,
a federal judge ordered Price Waterhouse to offer a partnership and
nearly $400,000 in back pay to Ann B. Hopkins, who claimed that she
had been denied a promotion to partner on grounds of sexual
discrimination. In November of the same year, a British bank, Standard
Charter PLC, sued the firm for negligence in failing to provide an
accurate financial accounting during the acquisition of United Bank of
Arizona in 1987. Financial analysts interpreted this latter action as
another setback for the accounting industry in the United States: more
than $3 billion in damage claims had already been brought against
accounting firms by regulatory agencies during the collapse of many
savings and loan associations.
Entering the 1990s, Price Waterhouse was expanding its services to
clients. The firm offered accounting, tax, and consulting products and
services in relation to information systems technology, corporate
finance, financial services, petroleum, public utilities, retailing,
entertainment, and other industries. With the highest partner earnings
and more blue-chip clients--including IBM, USX, J.P. Morgan,
Westinghouse, and Shell Oil--than any of the other Big Six U.S.
accounting firms, the partners at Price Waterhouse were not worried
about the firm's future. However, as its blue-chip client base showed
signs of shrinking, and with its sterling image tarnished by two
aborted merger attempts, Price Waterhouse would have to fight
vigorously for smaller clients and market itself aggressively to survive
in the modern world of consulting services.
The 1990s
Both Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse gradually increased
their emphasis on consulting in the 1990s. Auditing was proving risky
and expensive, as the Big Six were being held liable for the failure of
companies they audited and induced into paying huge settlements. In
1992 Coopers & Lybrand settled a suit brought against it by the
investors of MiniScribe, a disk-drive maker that went bankrupt.
Fighting against claims that they should have caught the company's
fraud, Coopers & Lybrand eventually agreed to pay investors $92
million. In another fraud-related case, the firm made large payments in
1996 to settle claims regarding failed companies in the media empire
of the deceased Robert Maxwell. The accounting firm was fined by
regulators in 1999 for their failure to detect Maxwell's fraudulent
transfer of $650 million from a company pension fund to himself.
Among other payments was Coopers & Lybrand's expensive settlement
related to their auditing of Phar-Mor pharmacies, bankrupt in the mid-
1990s.
Price Waterhouse had their own legal troubles in the 1990s. A
protracted battle over the company's audit of Bank of Credit and
Commerce International ended in 1995 with a payment of $200 million,
significantly less than the $11 billion sought by the creditors of the
collapsed bank. In addition to hefty settlements, the suits led to
soaring insurance costs for the accounting firms. By the mid-1990s,
many insurers refused to even cover the auditing practices of the Big
Six firms, forcing Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse to set
aside money to cover themselves.
Several factors led to growth in fee income for Coopers & Lybrand and
Price Waterhouse in the mid-1990s. An economic recovery in the
United States helped raise fee income by five percent for the Big Six in
1994. In addition, Coopers & Lybrand expanded its presence in Russia;
in Moscow alone the firm employed 250 people by 1995. Price
Waterhouse also grew in Russia and Eastern Europe, counting almost
1,000 employees there by 1994. The most important factor in their
growth was successful expansion of consulting services in the United
States. Both companies focused on providing services to certain
industries, becoming specialists in those areas. Coopers & Lybrand
primarily advised clients in pharmaceutical, insurance, and
telecommunications industries, whereas Price Waterhouse specialized
in banking, media and entertainment, and oil and gas industries.
The 1998 Merger
Price Waterhouse made yet another attempt at a merger in 1997 and
came to an agreement with Coopers & Lybrand. Although the merger
was voted in by the 3,250 Price Waterhouse partners and the 5,250
Coopers & Lybrand partners, the merger met some opposition from the
companies' clients and financial regulators. Christopher Pearce,
finance director of Rentokil and chairman of a group
representing FTSE 100 companies' finance directors, told
the Economist that the mergers will "reduce the choice for auditing
services and increase the conflicts of interest.'
These concerns and those of financial regulators looking at conflicts
of interest between consulting and auditing branches of the companies
did not stand in the way of the merger, which was completed in 1998.
The combination of the fourth and sixth largest of the Big Six firms
resulted in a new industry leader in terms of size and revenues, with
approximately 13,000 employees and revenues estimated at $12
billion. In the area of management consulting, the merger created little
overlap because the two founding firms specialized in separate
industries. It resulted in combined revenue of $1.6 billion, making the
new PricewaterhouseCoopers second only to Arthur Andersen in
consulting income. Nicholas G. Moore, chairman of Coopers & Lybrand
International, became the chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers, and
James J. Schiro, chief executive officer of Price Waterhouse, became
the CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Revenues for the newly forged company were $15.3 billion in 1998. The
company continued to grow, acquiring several European consulting
firms in the first half of 1999, including the France-based SV&GM
Group, the Italian consulting firm Galgan & Merli, and Belgium-
based KPMG Consulting. To support its rapid growth, the
PricewaterhouseCoopers launched a brand positioning ad campaign in
1999 designed to attract new employees.

Additional Details
Private Company

Incorporated: 1898 as Lybrand, Ross Bros. & Montgomery; 1865

as Price and Waterhouse

Employees: 140,000

Sales: $15.3 billion (1998)

NAIC: 541211 Offices of Certified Public Accountants

Further Reference
"Accountancy Mergers: Double Entries,' Economist, December 13,
1997."Accounting: The Big Five?' Economist, September 20, 1997.Allen,
David Grayson, and Kathleen McDermott, Accounting for Success: A
History of Price Waterhouse in America, 1890-1990, Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard Business School Press, 1993.Bedrosian, Linc, "The Art of
Accounting: CPAs Move Beyond Bean Counting to Assume Greater
Roles,' BusinessWest, March, 1993, p. 13.Boys, Peter, "What's in a
Name: Update (Names of Accounting Firms)," Accountancy, March
1990, p. 132.Cassidy, Tina, "Brain Drain at Coopers," Boston Business
Journal, February 8, 1993, p. 1."Coopers & Lybrand: Foundation for
Tomorrow," New York: Coopers & Lybrand, 1991."Coopers & Lybrand
International," New York Times, January 14, 1993, p. C6."Coopers in TV
Land," CPA Journal, March 1993, p. 8.The Early History of Coopers &
Lybrand, 1898-1948, New York: Garland, 1984.Elliott, Stuart, "Coopers
& Lybrand (Accounts)," New York Times, November 25, 1992, pp. C17,
D18.Felsenthal, Edward, "Coopers Wins Suit," Wall Street
Journal, March 2, 1993, pp. B10--11."Finance and Economics:
Disciplinary Measures," Economist, June 8, 1999."A Glimmer of
Hope," Economist, April 1, 1995.Lawyer, Gail, "Largest Accounting
Firms in the Metro Area (Metropolitan Washington Area)," Washington
Business Journal, March 19, 1993, p. 30.O'Malley, Shaun F., Price
Waterhouse: 100 Years of Service in the United States, New York:
Newcomen Society, 1990, pp. 1--28."The Price Was Right? Price
Waterhouse and BCCI," Economist, June 10, 1995.Stevens, Mark, The
Big Eight, New York: MacMillan, 1981.----, The Big Six, New York: Simon
and Schuster, 1991.Woo, Junda, "Big Six Accounting Firms Join Forces
for Legal Change (Firms Want Protection from Shareholders of Client
Companies)," Wall Street Journal, September 1, 1992, p. B7.

Read
more: http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/10/Pricewaterhou
seCoopers.html#ixzz4jI8JcIMs

PricewaterhouseCoopers records, 1891-2000

Creator: PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Phys. Desc: 148 linear ft. ( 98 record cartons & 4 flat boxes)

Call Number: MS#1028

Location: Rare Book & Manuscript Library

 View CLIO Record and Request Material >>

ONLINE INFORMATION
Online Finding Aid

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
PricewaterhouseCoopers , one of the world's top accountancy firms, has been created in 1998 by the
merger of two companies - Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand - each with historical roots going
back some 150 years to the 19th century Great Britain. The collection of PWC archival materials,
donated to Columbia University in 2000, traces the rise of both companies to major worldwide
professional services powerhouses through mergers and business expansion. In the1890s both
companies established their presence in the United States. The American accounting as a profession
was then a new undertaking with limited experience, little or no organized training facilities and
practically no authoritative means of establishing and enforcing professional standards. Early founders
of both firms were deeply involved in professional organizations of the time and instrumental in
establishing the standards and terminology of the nascent accounting profession. By maintaining a
firm stand on matters of professional ethics, and by relying on British practice and precedent, these
accountants played an important role in developing American auditing standards. Influenced by
market environment, legislative decisions and technological advances, Price Waterhouse & Co. and
Coopers & Lybrand were, to a large extent, developing along similar lines. Price Waterhouse & Co.: In
1850 Samuel Lowell Price sets up his accounting business in London. In 1865 he was joined in
partnership by William H. Holyland and an Edwin Waterhouse and by 1874 the company name
changes to Price, Waterhouse & Co. In 1873, the firm conducted their first US project. The growing US
practice lead to the establishment of permanent PW presence in the Western hemispere, which began
with the opening of the office on 45 Broadway, New York City in 1890 by a company agent Lewis D.
Jones. He was soon joined in America by William J. Caesar, who opened an office in Chicago. In 1895
the newly created Jones, Caesar & Co. was designated as an agent of Price Waterhouse. After Jones
early death Arthur L. Dickinson replaced retiring Caesar as a senior partner of the American firm. The
firm enjoyed solid reputation and high business volume. By the turn of the century, it built up a roster
of clients which covered a wide range of industrial and commercial fields in most sections of the
country. Branch offices began to open throughout the USA and then in other parts of the world: 1907
Joseph E. Sterett, an American with his own successful practice, joins the company and the American
firm's name changed from Jones, Caesar, Dickinson, Wilmot & Co. to Dickinson, Wilmot & Sterret. By
Dickinson's retirement as a senior partner in 1911 the firm grows large enough to need the committee
structure. In 1913 the name of American firm is dropped in favor of the English name Price
Waterhouse & Co. The 100 years of Price Waterhouse history in America divide into three periods,
each characterized by its own problems and dilemmas (McDermott and Allen, p. 248). The first era
(1890s to late 1920s) saw the Americanization of the practice and the rise of the firm around
professionally automonous partners. The second era, from the early 1930s to the late 1960s marked
the dominance of PW in the regulated monolithic environment in which the accounting profession then
functioned. The securities laws of the early 1930s pushed the audit to the center of firms' practice.
During the 'golden age' of 1950s the flow of capital to Europe led PW to establish the international
firm. The same time period witnessed the start of series of mergers at home. The third era, 1970 to
1990s, saw the reformulation of the agenda in a period of radical change in both marketplace and the
profession. 1982 Price Waterhouse World Firm formed. The steady absorption of the more successful
local and regional practices in the Big Eight (later Big Six) accelerated. Innovations in technology
resulted in changes to traditional work pattern. Shifting client base, wave of litigations, changes in
service mix and additional standards, established by SEC and Congress, led to increase in overhead
costs. All these factors eroded industry structure established in 1930s. Greater competitiveness led to
dismantling of earlier professional prohibitions against advertizing. Price competition in audit wars,
and industry mergers led Price Waterhouse, which always focues on auditing, to start admitting non-
CPA's and expand management consulting services. Coopers & Lybrand: In 1854 William Cooper
establishes his own practice in London, which seven years later becomes Cooper Brothers. Firm's
history in the United States begins in 1898, when Robert H. Montgomery, William M. Lybrand, Adam
A. Ross Jr. and his brother T. Edward Ross form Lybrand, Ross Brothers and Montgomery in
Philadelphia. During the early 20th century, their offices spread around the country and then in
Europe. The explosive growth ended with Great Depression that forced the firm to reorganize
organizational structure, and to shift the focus from expansion toward flexible specialization, such as
finding new types of services (tax services, management consulting) for exhisting clientele . In the
1930s LRB&M was enegaged by the federal government to investigate several banks and trust
ocmpanies throughout the United States - the work of unprecedented magnitude, ranging from an
investigation to a detailed audit followed by liquidation proceedings. After the death of Col.
Montgomery in 1953, the new generation of leaders came to the fore: Alvin R. Jennings, Walter A.
Staub, Philip L. Defliese, Norman E. Auerbach. Under their leadership, the firm experienced a major
transformation from medium-size company, focused on auditing and primarliy national in scope, into a
multinational player with a growing mix of consulting services. The boldest step was a 1957 merger
between Cooper Brothers & Co (UK), McDonald, Currie and Co (Canada) and Lybrand, Ross Bros &
Montgomery (US), forming Coopers & Lybrand - a truly international powerhouse, operating through
79 offices in 19 countries. 1950s also saw the addition of an autonomous line of specialization in
mamagement consulting services. The company acquired more formal oragnizational structure, and
continued a policy of selective mergers, including an important addition of Scovell, Vellington & Co. in
1962. In 1973 American firm adopts the name Coopers and Lybrand. Globalization and information
boom led to increased interest in Knowledge Management, adding it to the existing mix of professional
services. In 1990 Coopers & Lybrand merges with Deloitte Haskins & Sells in a number of countries
around the world In 1998 Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand merge worldwide to become
PricewaterhouseCoopers.

SCOPE AND CONTENTS

The collection is clearly divided into two record groups: Price Waterhouse & Co. archival materials and
Coopers & Lybrand archival materials. The documents from the offices Price Waterhouse & Co.
materials include original company documents, accounting books, and other records created by Price
Waterhouse or the firms that have subsequently merged with it. The group further contains papers of
George O. May, (led the company from 1911 to 1926), files from the office of Herman W. Bevis (led
the company from 1961 to 1969), company publications and library of book related to accounting.
This group also includes the files of historical research conducted by Winthrop Group for Centennial of
Price Waterhouse in America (1990), oral history tapes and transcripts, videos and digital materials.
Coopers and Lybrand materials include original company documents, accounting books, and other
records created by Lybrand, Ross Brothers & Montgomery, Coopers Brothers and other firms that have
subsequently merged to form Coopers and Lybrand. A large collection of printed materials contains
first editions, manuals, broshures and periodicals. Also included are files and audio recordings of
James Mahon (LRB&M National Director of Practice Development), and files from the office of
Catherine "Millie" McGovern, C&L manager and event coordinator. Numerous audiovisual materials
include photos, video documentaries and oral history records. This record group also includes
historical research conducted by the Business History Group for CL centennial (1998).

SUBJECTS
Accounting.

Accounting--Law and legislation.

Auditing, Internal.
Auditing.

Commercial law.

Corporations--Taxation--Law and legislation.

Income tax--Law and legislation.

Lybrand, Ross Bros. & Montgomery.

Mahon, James Joseph, 1912-

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Taxation--Law and legislation.