Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (), commonly referred to as Deloitte, is a British multinational professional services network headquartered in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of professionals in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting firms along with EY, KPMG and PwC.
The firm was founded by William Welch Deloitte in London in 1845 and expanded into the United States in 1890. It merged with Haskins & Sells to form Deloitte Haskins & Sells in 1972 and with Touche Ross in the US to form Deloitte & Touche in 1989. In 1993, the international firm was renamed Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, later abbreviated to Deloitte. In 2002, Arthur Andersen's practice in the UK as well as several of that firm's practices in Europe and North and South America agreed to merge with Deloitte. Subsequent acquisitions have included Monitor Group, a large strategy consulting business, in January 2013. The international firm is a UK private company, limited by guarantee, supported by a network of independent legal entities.
Deloitte provides audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk advisory, tax, and legal services with approximately 415,000 professionals globally. In FY 2021, the network earned revenues of US$50.2 billion in aggregate. The firm has sponsored a number of activities and events including the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Controversies involving the firm, in addition to litigation surrounding a few of its audits, have included its involvement in a "potentially misleading" report on illicit tobacco trading in Australia, the fact that it suffered a major cyber-attack which breached client confidentiality as well as exposing extensive employee information in September 2017, its role as internal auditor of the insolvent contractor Carillion and its role as external auditor of Autonomy which was accused of "accounting improprieties" that contributed to an £8.8 billion write-down of value following its acquisition by Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
History
Early history
In 1845, William Welch Deloitte opened an office in London, United Kingdom. Deloitte was the first person to be appointed an independent auditor of a public company, namely the Great Western Railway. He went on to open an office in New York in 1880.
In 1890, Deloitte opened a branch office on Wall Street headed by Edward Adams and P.D. Griffiths as branch managers. That was Deloitte's first overseas venture. Other branches were soon opened in Chicago and Buenos Aires. In 1898 P.D. Griffiths returned from New York and became a partner in the London office.
In 1896, Charles Waldo Haskins and Elijah Watt Sells formed Haskins & Sells in New York. It was later described as "the first major auditing firm to be established in the country by American rather than British accountants".
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.
On 1 March 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 companies.
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. 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 co-founder of Touche Niven, George Touche: the Canadian organization Ross and the British organization George A. Touche. In 1960, the firm was renamed Touche, Ross, Bailey & Smart, becoming Touche Ross in 1969. In 1968 Nobuzo Tohmatsu formed Tohmatsu Aoki & Co, a firm based in Japan that was to become part of the Touche Ross network in 1975. In 1972 Robert Trueblood, Chairman of Touche Ross, led the committee responsible for recommending the establishment of the Financial Accounting Standards Board.
In 1972, Deloitte's firm (by then known as Deloitte, Plender, Griffiths & Co.) merged with Haskins & Sells to form Deloitte Haskins & Sells.
