KPMG history, profile and history video
“About KPMG
“History
Early years and mergers
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 inGlasgow.
Meanwhile in 1917 Piet Klijnveld opened his accounting firm in Amsterdam. Later he merged with Kraayenhof to form Klynveld Kraayenhof & Co.
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 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. Then in 1987 KMG and Peat Marwick joined forces in the first mega-merger of large accounting firms and formed a firm called KPMG in the US, and most of the rest of the world, and Peat Marwick McLintock in the UK.
In 1990 the two firms settled on the common name of KPMG Peat Marwick McLintock but in 1991 the firm was renamed KPMG Peat Marwick, and in 1999 the name was reduced again to KPMG.
In 1997 KPMG and Ernst & Young announced that they were to merge. However, while the merger to form PricewaterhouseCoopers was granted regulatory approval, the KPMG/Ernst & Young tie-up was later abandoned.
Recent history
In 2001 KPMG divested its U.S. consulting firm through an initial public offering of KPMG Consulting Inc, which is now called BearingPoint, Inc. In early 2009, BearingPoint filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The UK and Dutch consulting arms were sold to Atos Origin in 2002.
In 2003 KPMG divested itself of its legal arm, Klegal and KPMG LLP sold its Dispute Advisory Services to FTI Consulting.
KPMG’s member firms in the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein merged to form KPMG Europe LLP in October 2007. These member firms were followed by Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, CIS (Azerbaijan, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Georgia), Turkey, Norway, and Saudi Arabia. They appointed joint Chairmen, John Griffith-Jones and Ralf Nonnenmacher. The new headquarters were located in Frankfurt, Germany.”