Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (also branded as Deloitte.) is one of the largest professional services firms in the world and one of the Big Four auditors, along with PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, and KPMG.
According to the firm's website as of 2008, Deloitte has approximately 165,000 professionals at work in 142 countries, delivering audit, tax, consulting, and financial advisory services.[1]
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu is a Swiss Verein, a membership organization under the Swiss Civil Code whereby each member firm is a separate and independent legal entity. Its global headquarters are located in New York City, New York.[2] European headquarters are located in London.
History
Early history
In 1845 William Welch Deloitte opened an office in Basinghall Street in London: he was the first person to be appointed an independent auditor of a public company.[3] He went on to open an office in New York in 1880.[3]
In 1895 Charles Waldo Haskins and Eijah Watt Sells formed Haskins & Sells in New York.[3]
In 1898 George Touche established an office in London and then in 1900 joined John Ballantine Niven in establishing the firm of Touche Niven in the Johnston Building at 30 Broad Street in New York.[3] At the time, there were fewer than 500 CPAs practicing in the United States, but the new era of income taxes was soon to generate enormous demand for accounting professionals.
1930s
- See also: Ultramares Corporation v. Touche
On April 1, 1933, Colonel Arthur Hazelton Carter, President of the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants and Managing Partner of Haskins & Sells, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking and Currency. Carter helped convince Congress that independent audits should be mandatory for public traded corporations.[3]
1940s
In 1947, Detroit accountant George Bailey, then president of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, launched his own organization. The new entity enjoyed such a positive start that in less than a year, the partners merged with Touche Niven and A.R. Smart to form Touche, Niven, Bailey & Smart.[3] Headed by Bailey, the organization grew rapidly, in part by creating a dedicated Management Consulting function. It also forged closer links with organizations established by the cofounder of Touche Niven, George Touche: the Canadian organization Ross, Touche and the British organization George A. Touche.[3] In 1960, the firm was renamed Touche, Ross, Bailey & Smart, becoming Touche Ross in 1969.[3]
The 1950s
In 1952 Deloitte merged with Haskins & Sells to form Deloitte, Haskins & Sells.[3]
The 1960s
In 1968 Nobuzo Tohmatsu formed Tohmatsu Awoki & Co, a firm based in Japan that was to become part of the Touche Ross network in 1975.[3]
The 1970s
In 1972 Robert Trueblood, Chairman of Touche Ross, led the committee responsible for recommending the establishment of the Financial Accounting Standards Board.[3] He led the expansion of Touche Ross in that era.
The 1980s
In 1982, David Moxley and W. Grant Gregory became the leaders at Touche Ross. In 1985, Edward A. Kangas, a management consultant, was appointed managing partner of Touche Ross. In 1984, J. Michael Cook became managing partner of Deloitte, Haskins & Sells.
In 1989 the global firm of Touche Ross broke up. Led by the US business, some country partnerships of Touche Ross merged with Deloitte Haskins Sells to form Deloitte & Touche: the merged firm was led by J. Michael Cook and Edward A. Kangas. Led by the UK partnership a smaller number of firms rejected that merger and shortly thereafter merged with Coopers & Lybrand to form Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte (later to become PwC).
The 1990s
Deloitte Office Building in Downtown Chicago
In 1993 the international firm was renamed Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu to reflect the contribution from the Japanese firm.[3]
In 1995, the partners of Deloitte & Touche decided to create Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group (later Deloitte Consulting).[4]
The 2000s
Following the demise of Arthur Andersen in 2002, almost half of the Partners and Staff of the UK business of Arthur Andersen joined the Deloitte firm.
The Deloitte US firms started its operations in India in the year 2000, now called Deloitte India (formerly known as Region 10). Since then they have led the way in remote delivery of services. Their offices in Mumbai and Hyderabad currently employ over 6,000 professionals.
Branding
While in 1989, in most countries, Deloitte, Haskins & Sells merged with Touche Ross forming Deloitte & Touche, in the United Kingdom the local firm of Deloitte, Haskins & Sells merged instead with Coopers & Lybrand (which today is PricewaterhouseCoopers).[5] For some years after the merger, the merged UK firm was called Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte and the local firm of Touche Ross kept its original name. In the mid-1990s however, both UK firms changed their names to match those of their respective international organisations.
While the full name of the firm is Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, in 1989 it initially branded itself Deloitte & Touche and then simply Deloitte. with a round green dot following the name. In 2003 the rebranding campaign was commissioned by Bill Parrett, the then CEO of DTT, and led by Jerry Lehman, the global Clients and Markets leader.[6]
Services
Deloitte & Touche LLP in the UK offers all four of the following service lines, all operating within a single company sometimes with professionals from different areas working alongside each other:[7]
- Audit
- Tax
- Consulting
- Financial Advisory (or Corporate Finance)
In comparison, Deloitte LLP (the US member firm) is composed of several function-specific subsidiaries, each of which is a separate legal entity but a wholly owned subsidiary. Some countries' member firms are organized differently.
- Deloitte Consulting LLP: Provides consulting services to various clients in Financial Services, Consumer & Industrial Products, Health Care & Life Sciences, Public Sector, and other industries and subcategories. The specific consulting capabilities are organized into Service Areas: Enterprise Applications, Technology Integration, Strategy & Operations, Human Capital, and Extended Business Services (XBS), which are further broken down into relevant subcategories. They concentrate on providing more solid and defined business processes for companies which previously lacked them.[8]
- Deloitte & Touche LLP: This function is known internally as Audit & Enterprise Risk Services, and provides the firm's traditional accounting and audit services, as well as offerings in risk management, security, data quality & integrity and IT control assurance.[9]
- Deloitte Tax LLP: This function provides traditional tax advisory services to clients, as well as offerings in tax systems and advisory of tax implications on various parts of the business: mergers & acquisitions, ERP package implementation, etc.[10]
- Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP: This function provides financial advisory services to clients, including dispute, forensics, and valuation.[11]
- Deloitte Services LP: While not a client-facing subsidiary, this vital function comprises people that operate the firm itself, such as finance, human resources, marketing, Strategy, Research & Innovation (SR&I), mail and printing services, technology support, and administrative assistants.
Staff
The firm is rated by Fortune as one of the 100 best companies to work for.[12]
In 2007, Deloitte was rated the number one place to launch your career by Business Week.[13]
Criticisms
Disputes involving Deloitte include:
- Adelphia Communications Corporation - The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on April 26, 2005 that Deloitte had agreed to pay $50 million to settle charges relating to Adelphia's 2000 financial statements[14]
- Guangdong Kelon Electrical Holdings - Investors have claimed that there was a failure to alert them to the company's poor financial position[15]
- Haringey Council Refresh Project - A local government IT project in the UK, in which costs rose from £9m to £24.6m. Deloitte were consultants on the project, despite being employed at the same time as the council's auditors.[16]
- Irish Health Service Executive - Poor consulting support of health accounts system software in 2005 led to major cost overruns and the Irish Health Service Executive pulling the plug on the computer system entirely after substantial cash outlays[17]
- Los Angeles Unified School District ('LAUSD') - The firm sold the system to LAUSD for US$95m and because of faults in the system the schoolteachers were underpaid, overpaid or not paid at all.[18] As at 31 December 2007 LAUSD had incurred a total of US$140m in payments to Deloitte to get the system working properly.[19] However in January 2008 there was some evidence that that the payroll issues had started to stabilize with errors below 1% according to LAUSD's chief operating officer.[20]
Notable current and former employees
Business
Politics and public service
Other
Clients
Major clients include (note that not all of these are audit clients):
- Aerospace: Alliant Techsystems, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon
- Auction: Sotheby's
- Banks: Arab Bank, KB, The World Bank, Rosbank, Royal Bank of Canada, Washington Mutual, Royal Bank of Scotland, BNP Paribas, National Bank of Canada
- Chemicals: Dow Chemical Company, Huntsman Corporation, Solutia
- Conglomerate: Tyco International
- Energy and Electricity: American Electric Power, Keyspan Energy, Southern Company, Xcel Energy, General Cable Corporation, Dominion Resources, AES Corporation
- Financial Services: American Express, VISA, Charles Schwab Corp., E*TRADE Group Inc., Fannie Mae, Fidelity Investments, Lehman Brothers, Lloyds TSB, MasterCard, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Sky Financial Group Inc., MoneyGram, Radian Group, MICEX, Berkshire Hathaway, Countrywide Financial, Cantor Fitzgerald L.P.
- Healthcare: Abbott Laboratories, HealthPartners, McKesson Corporation, UnitedHealth Group, Wellcare Healthplans Inc., Health Net, Inc., Servicio Occidental de Salud, Mutual of Omaha
- Industrial Good & Products: Blackstone Group, Deere & Company, Dura Automotive Systems, Fiat Group General Motors, Hyundai Motors, Nissan, Tata Group, Vulcan Materials Company, UPS
- Industrial Metals: Mittal Steel, MMK (Russia), Norilsk Nickel, Gerdau
- Insurance: Allstate, Berkshire Hathaway, Metlife, Norwich Union
- Media: Bloomberg L.P., Middle East Broadcasting Center, Comcast
- Religion: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
- Retail & Consumer Products: Ahold, Best Buy, Gap, Heinz, Hyatt, Levi Strauss & Co., Liz Claiborne Inc., L'Oreal, MGM Mirage, Nordstrom, Procter and Gamble, Safeway Inc., Starbucks, Walgreens, Pep Boys
- Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology: Bristol-Myers Squibb, Monsanto, Rite Aid Corporation, Schering-Plough, Hikma, Johnson & Johnson
- Public Sector: State of Texas, United States Department of Defense, United States Department of Justice, United States Department of Homeland Security, United States Intelligence Community, European Institutions
- Publishing: Cox Enterprises
- Sports: Major League Baseball, Comcast-Spectacor
- Technology: Dell Inc., Gateway, Inc., Microsoft, Motorola, Pentair, Intel, Telvent
- Telecommunications: AT&T Mobility, BT, Comcast, MTS, Sprint Nextel Corporation, Umniah, Vodafone, WPP
- Transportation: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
- Travel: ATA Airlines, Avianca, Continental Airlines, Midwest Airlines, Northwest Airlines, US Airways, United Airlines/UAL Corporation
See also
References
External links
Data
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