In the field of international business, Big Four is a well-known group of the largest organizations of a transnational scale that provide audit and consulting services.
Big Four includes:
Deloitte — Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited
PwC — PricewaterhouseCoopers
EY — Ernst & Young
KPMG — Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler
They provide legal services to the vast majority of publicly traded companies. This group can rightly be called an oligopoly, as they dominate the audit and consulting market. Big Four serves 99% of FTSE-100 companies, 96% of FTSE-250 firms, and 95% of Fortune-500 organizations.
The FTSE-100 index is calculated by the British Stock Exchange and is based on the values ​​of the shares of 100 companies with the largest capitalization. Their total capitalization exceeds 80% of all firms listed on the stock exchange. Fortune magazine publishes its ranking of the world’s 500 largest organizations, compiling it according to annual revenue.
Each of these audit organizations has more than a century of history. PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte Touche were founded in 1849 in Great Britain. For 170 years, they have experienced enough reorganizations and upheavals, but they are still the biggest players. In 1870, KPMG was created. The youngest company is Ernst & Young, who began providing audit services in 1903.