Ernst & Young has halted its plan to split the accounting and consultancy firm after U.S. partners objected to the proposal, the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times reported Tuesday.
The rejection ends a more than yearlong effort to divide the Big Four accounting firm into consulting and auditing businesses. The effort had been gathering steam until this spring when U.S. partners blocked the plan, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Big Four firm communicated the decision on Tuesday in a note to partners, which was seen by the Financial Times.
The plan, code named “Project Everest”, was approved by EY’s global leadership in September and would have represented the biggest shake-up in the accounting industry in more than two decades.
The note, signed by EY’s 18-person global executive committee, said it was committed to pursuing a different deal in the future.
“The global executive remains committed to moving forward with creating two world-class organisations that further advance audit quality, independence and client choice,” they wrote.
“However, we have been informed that the US Executive Committee has decided not to move forward with the design of Project Everest. Given the strategic importance of the US member firm to Project Everest, we are stopping work on the project.”
EY operates as a global network of member firms but the plan needed to be approved on a country-by-country basis.
This post was originally published on Market Watch
