Swiss Cooperative | |
Industry | Professional services |
Founded | 1987(merger of Peat Marwick International and Klynveld Main Goerdeler) |
Headquarters | Amstelveen, Netherlands |
Area served
|
Worldwide |
Key people
|
J. B. Veihmeyer (chairman) |
Services | |
Revenue | US$25.42 billion (2016) |
Number of employees
|
188,982 (2016) |
Website | www.kpmg.com |
KPMG is a professional service company and one of the Big Four auditors, along with Deloitte, EY and PwC.
Seated in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, KPMG employs 189,000 people and has three lines of services: audit, tax, and advisory. Its tax and advisory services are further divided into various service groups.
The name "KPMG" stands for "Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler." It was chosen when KMG (Klynveld Main Goerdeler) merged with Peat Marwick.
The firm's history dates back to 1870 when William Barclay Peat joined an accounting firm in London and took it over, as William Barclay Peat & Co., in 1891. In 1877 accountancy firm Thomson McLintock opened an office in Glasgow. In 1897 Marwick Mitchell & Co. was founded by James Marwick and Roger Mitchell in New York City. In 1899 Ferdinand William LaFrentz founded the American Audit Co., in New York, which was renamed FW LaFrentz & Co in 1923.
Meanwhile, in 1917 Piet Klijnveld and Jaap Kraayenhof opened an accounting firm called Klynveld Kraayenhof & Co. in Amsterdam. On the other side of the Atlantic, Frank Wilber Main founded Main & Co. in Pittsburgh in about 1913.
In 1925 William Barclay Peat & Co. and Marwick Mitchell & Co. (a firm founded by James Marwick and Roger Mitchell in New York), merged to form Peat Marwick Mitchell & Company (later known simply as Peat Marwick).
In 1963 Main LaFrentz & Co was formed by the merger of Main & Co and FW LaFrentz & Co. In 1969 Thomson McLintock and Main LaFrentz merged forming McLintock Main LaFrentz International.
In 1979 Klynveld Kraayenhof & Co. (Netherlands), McLintock Main LaFrentz (United Kingdom / United States) and Deutsche Treuhandgesellschaft (Germany) formed KMG (Klynveld Main Goerdeler) as a grouping of independent national practices to create a strong European-based international firm. In the United States, Main Lafrentz & Co. merged with Hurdman and Cranstoun to form Main Hurdman & Cranstoun.