The Big Four cumulate 97m-euro business

The four largest auditing and consulting companies (known collectively as The Big Four) cumulated a 97 million-euro turnover last year, up 16% against 2005. The companies, however, saw a mere 3.3 million-euro profit, down 66% on 2005, according to data published by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The Big Four are not usually very transparent and do not reveal their financial results, therefore the ranking in terms of turnover and profit for 2006 can only now be published, after the Ministry of Finance presented the financial results for all companies. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) reported a 4% decline in turnover in 2006, from 33.4 to 32 million euros, while the entire Big Four experienced a 16% increase. In terms of turnover, there were no changes in the ranking from 2005, with PwC followed by Ernst & Young (E&Y), which reported a business worth almost 24 million euros, up by 20%. The other two companies, KPMG and Deloitte, saw the highest turnover increase among the Big Four last year (36%), to 22.7 and 18.3 million euros respectively.