Royal Bank of Scotland

. Today, PricewaterhouseCoopers brands its consulting activities through the Advisory name. It has offices throughout Europe, America and Asia. The selling of this profitable arm of the firm was a result of public pressure on all the Big Four audit firms, as it is seen to be a conflict of interest for an audit firm to be offering non-audit services to clients. The bank's head office is in St Andrew's Square, Edinburgh. In August 2003, IBM revealed that the actual value of the deal was closer to $3.9 billion. Its shares have a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange. In October 2002 PricewaterhouseCoopers sold PwC Consulting, its professional consulting arm, to IBM for approximately $3.5 billion in cash and stock.

Today it is the largest bank in Scotland, the second largest in the UK and Europe, and the fifth largest in the world by market capitalisation. These plans were soon revised, however.
The Royal Bank of Scotland LSE: RBSis one of Scotland's four national clearing banks and one of the oldest in the UK, founded in Edinburgh in 1727 by Royal Charter. (See also related article on rebranding.). The bank's annual gross profit exceeds the annual budget of the Scottish Government. During 2000, rival firm Arthur Andersen had spun off its consulting activities as Accenture. In June 1997, The Royal Bank of Scotland became the first high street bank in the UK to introduce an Internet banking service. This unusual branding effort occurred in part as a response to one of the firm's rivals.

It was the first bank in the world to offer an overdraft facility. According to a June 2002 BBC news article, the firm's CEO, Greg Brenneman described the unusual name as "a real word, concise, recognisable, global and the right fit for a company that works hard to deliver results.". It is the only UK bank that still prints a 1 pound note. An outside consultancy, Wolf Olins, was hired to create a brand image for the new entity, which was introduced to the public as "Monday". The Royal Bank of Scotland, along with Clydesdale Bank and Bank of Scotland, still prints its own banknotes for Scotland. The firm announced in May 2002 that its consulting activities would be spun off as an independent entity. WorldPay - specialised in Internet Business. PwC planned to capitalize one these development through either a sale to possible suitors like HP and Microsoft or to spin off the division as a separate company.

Coutts - UK private bank based in London. During the time of the dotcom era, many smaller consultancies capitalized on the tremendous wealth generated in the equity markets. Ulster Bank - Belfast-based bank with branches throughout Ireland. The Management Consulting Services (MCS) was one of fastest growing and most profitable areas of the consultancy. Direct Line - telephone financial services company. Though the firm's core business is accountancy, it also ran a huge professional consulting branch, as did other major accountancy firms. bank group based in New England. PricewaterhouseCoopers had already decided to sell its technology consulting practice to IBM by this point.

Citizens Financial Group - U.S. This forced many of the Big Four to divest their interests in technology consulting. Adam and Company - UK private bank. One such result was the adoption of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which required auditor independence and separation of internal audit from general consulting. NatWest - UK clearing bank, head office in London. The 2002 indictment of Enron and WorldCom and the subsequent collapse of Arthur Andersen resulted in stringent SEC rules on auditor independence. Royal Bank of Scotland- Scottish clearing bank, head office in Edinburgh. The following year, merger discussions between PwC and Grant Thornton failed.

2000- acquisition of the National Westminster Bank after hostile takeover battle with the Bank of Scotland. In 1998, Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand merged to form PricewaterhouseCoopers. 1997- develops internet banking. Coopers & Lybrand lost a majority of its market share in the 1980s when mergers reduced the Big Eight to the Big Six. 1997- Registrars department acquired by Australian share registry company Computershare. In the 1970s, Coopers & Lybrand studied ways to incorporate technology into automating the auditing process. 1988- acquisition of Citizens Financial Group of Rhode Island. Coopers & Lybrand was essentially an auditing firm.

1985- Williams and Glyn's bank name merged with the Royal Bank of Scotland. & Montgomery and the Cooper Brothers. 1985- established the Direct Line insurance brand. Coopers & Lybrand, the product of a 1957 merger between Lybrand, Ross Bros. 1980- abortive hostile takeover bid by Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation fails. The firm benefitted from tough auditing requirements that arose from the Great Depression. 1972- merger with National Commercial Bank of Scotland. Price Waterhouse's offices in the United States were open in the 1890s.

1920- acquisition of various small English banks to form Williams Deacons Bank,later combined with Glyn Mills & Co. to form Williams and Glyn's Bank. By the late 1800s, Price Waterhouse had gained significant recognition as an accounting firm. 1874- first London branch opens. A few years later, he took on Edwin Waterhouse as a partner of the firm, leading to the birth of Price Waterhouse. 1783- first branch in Glasgow opens. Samuel Price, an accountant, founded the firm in London in 1850. 1727- founded in Edinburgh by Royal Charter. PwC's other large clients include American International Group, The Home Depot, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Tesco and Unilever.

PwC also audits four of the 10 largest companies in the United Kingdom (GlaxoSmithKline, Shell, Barclays and Lloyds TSB Group). As of March 2005, PricewaterhouseCoopers' audit clients included four of the 10 largest public companies in the United States (Exxon Mobil Corporation, Ford Motor Company, ChevronTexaco and IBM). The firm's dominant practice is Assurance, which accounts for over 50% of PwC's revenue. Europe and North America account for about 82% of PwC's annual revenue, with Europe alone accounting for 45%.

According to statistics compiled by the firm from third party sources, PwC ranks in as the number 1 employer of choice among the Big 4 in student recruiting surveys from 12 countries including China, Germany, United Kingdom and the United States [2]. PricewaterhouseCoopers is one of the top 10 companies for working mothers in 2004 according to Working Mother Media. PwC audits 37 per cent of the FTSE 100; 22 per cent of the FT Asia Pacific 100 and 43% per cent of the Fortune 1000. The firm also has in-house human resource services and legal services (through its correspondent global legal firm, Landwell).

PwC's service lines are further divided into Consumer and Industrial Products and Service (CIPS), Financial Services (FS) and Technology, Infocomm and Entertainment (TICE). PricewaterhouseCoopers has three main service lines — Tax, Audit and Assurance and Advisory. DiPiazza Jr, a 45 year old partner of the erstwhile Coopers & Lybrand. The current global CEO is Samuel A.

These 'sister' firms are governed by a global board of partners. The legal structure of a partnership is very different to that of a company, and as such the global firm is in fact a collection of member firms, that are run autonomously in their respective jurisdictions. . PricewaterhouseCoopers is head quartered in New York City, United States.

PwC is one of the Big Four, along with KPMG, Ernst & Young and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, and was formed in 1998 from a merger between Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand. There are over 120,000 people employed by the global partnership, in 144 countries around the world, working in four lines of service and 22 industry-specialised practices. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (or PwC) is the largest professional services firm and the 6^th largest private company in the world [1]. Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Big Four auditors.