Ernst & Young Global Limited, doing business as EY,^[6][7] is a multinational professional services network with headquarters in London, England.^[8] EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world.^[9] Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers, it is considered one of the Big Four accounting firms. It primarily provides assurance (which includes financial audit), tax, consulting and advisory services to its clients.^[10] Like many of the larger accounting firms in recent years,^[11] EY has expanded into markets adjacent to accounting, including strategy, operations, HR, technology, and financial services consulting.^[12]

EY operates as a network of member firms which are structured as separate legal entities in a partnership, which has 312,250 employees in over 700 offices in more than 150 countries around the world.^[13] The firm's current partnership was formed in 1989 by a merger of two accounting firms; Ernst & Whinney and Arthur Young & Co.^[14] It was named Ernst & Young until a rebranding campaign officially changed its name to EY in 2013,^[15] although this initialism was already used informally prior to its sanctioning adoption.

In 2019, EY was the seventh-largest privately owned organization in the United States.^[16] EY has continuously been ranked on Fortune magazine's list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For for the past 21 years, longer than any other accounting firm.^[17]        

History

Early history and mergers

EY resulted from several mergers of ancestor firms over the last century and a half, the oldest of which was founded in 1849, in England, as Harding & Pullein. That same year, this firm was joined by an accountant named Frederick Whinney, who, a decade later, became a partner. After his son joined the firm, it was later renamed Whinney, Smith & Whinney, in 1894.^[18]

In 1903, the firm Ernst & Ernst was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, by Alwin C. Ernst, and his brother, Theodore Ernst. In 1906, Arthur Young & Co. was set up by a Scotsman accountant, Arthur Young, in Chicago. Starting in 1924, these two American firms became allied with prominent British firms; Young with Broads Paterson & Co.; and Ernst with the aforementioned Whinney Smith & Whinney. The latter of these two mergers spawned Anglo-American partnership Ernst & Whinney in 1979, then the fourth largest accountancy firm in the world.^[18]

A decade later, in 1989, Ernst & Whinney merged with the fifth largest firm globally at the time, Arthur Young & Co., to create Ernst & Young

Who we are

Builders of a better working world