Pwc Knocks Off Accenture To Top Fee Income Chart

A survey of global consulting firms based on fee income figures for the year 2000 has revealed a change in the top order in terms of revenue. Consultant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has pipped arch rival Accenture to climb to the top of the table by a small margin.

PwC's fee income for the year stood at POUNDS 768 million, compared with Accentures' POUND 743 million.

Accenture had been the top global firm in 1998 and 1999, with a fee income of POUNDS 545 million and POUNDS 609 million, respectively. In both these years, PwC had been behind Accenture by about POUNDS 5 million.

The figures exclude PwC's revenues from businesses like audit and tax, which represent its traditional practices. It has recently restructured its business groups for better business focus.

The company had also fended off an attempt by Hewlett-Packard to take over the consultancy practice. PwC had been under pressure to sell its practice following urgings by the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) of the US to separate the audit and consultancy businesses. SEC has subsequently decided not to press ahead with this action of mandatory separation of businesses.

In third rank in the list is Cap Gemini Ernst & Young with POUNDS 660 million in revenue. It is followed by Xansa with a fee income of POUNDS 370 million for 2000, higher than the 1999's income of POUNDS 237 million.

KPMG Consulting is fifth, with fee income of POUNDS 272 million (POUNDS 282 million in 1999) and POUNDS 217 million in 1998).

High profile consultant McKinsey came in at rank 8 with 2000 fee income of POUNDS 160 million (POUNDS 135 million in 1999 and POUNDS 122 million in 1998). Andersen Consulting was next at POUNDS 148 million, (POUNDS 97 million in 1999 and POUNDS 78 million in 1998).

Arthur D Littel, another familiar name in India, was at rank 18 with fees of POUNDS 65 million in 2000 (POUNDS 58 million in 1999 and POUNDS 62 million in 1998). It ranked equal in 2000 fee income estimates with AT Kearney (ATK) at POUNDS 65 million. But, in 1999, ATK was little behind at POUNDS 57 million and much smaller in 1998 at POUNDS 47 million.