The largest accountancy firms have increased their share of the UK audit market with 100 percent of FTSE 100 companies audited by the Big Four, referring to Ernst & Young (EY), Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the research has found.
The research also showed that the Big Four increased their combined total fee income by 4.7 percent to 10.95 billion pounds (14.09 billion U.S. dollars) and audit fee income by 1.7 percent to 2.1 billion pounds. By contrast, total fee income at non-big four public interest entity audit firms fell by 8.1 percent and audit fee income fell by 6.3 percent.
The competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority, proposed last year operational split of audit function and consultancy services because auditors' focus on quality appears diluted by the fact that at least 75 percent of the revenue of the Big Four comes from other services like consulting.
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