Ernst & Young (EY) is one of the largest professional service firms in the world and one of the "Big Four" accounting firms, along with Deloitte, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
Ernst & Young is a global organization of member firms in more than 140 countries, headquartered in London, UK.
It was ranked by Forbes magazine as the 8th largest private company in the United States in 2011
Ernst & Young is the result of a series of mergers of ancestor organizations. The oldest originating partnership was founded in 1849 in England as Harding & Pullein.[6] In that year the firm was joined by Frederick Whinney. He was made a partner in 1859 and with his sons in the business it was renamed Whinney Smith & Whinney in 1894.
In 1903, the firm of Ernst & Ernst was established in Cleveland by Alwin C. Ernst and his brother Theodore and in 1906 Arthur Young & Co. was set up by the Scotsman Arthur Young in Chicago.
2000, EY was the first of the firms to formally and fully separate its consulting practices via a sale to the French IT services company Cap Gemini for $11 billion, largely in stock, creating the new company of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, which was later renamed Capgemini.
In 2002 EY merged with many of the ex-Arthur Andersen practices around the world, although not those in the UK, China or the Netherlands.
In 2006 EY became the only big four to have two member firms in the United States with the inclusion of Mitchell & Titus, LLP, the largest minority-owned accounting firm in the United States.
In 2010 EY acquired Terco, the Brazilian member firm of Grant Thornton