Everyone knows that the Big Four dominate at the top of the public company audit market. The largest companies use the Big Four almost exclusively, and only a handful of other firms compete for a share of that slice of the market.
But as you move away from the larger companies, even the bottom of within the Russell 3000, the number of audit firms competing for market share explodes. In a recent analysis, we noted that 33 accounting firms provide audit services to about 1,960 Large Accelerated Filers. But when you get down to the 2,400+ Smaller Reporting Companies, more than 280 firms compete for their audits.
In that analysis we focused on all SEC registrants. In this post we look at the Russell 3000, a group of companies likely more familiar to most readers than the entire SEC population.
To illustrate, we took the Russell 3000 and broke the constituents up into quartiles based on fiscal 2017 revenue. The buckets, and the percentage of the companies in each bucket that are audited by non-Big Four firms are presented in the following chart:
When focusing on companies with revenues between $10 million to $150 million, 114 non-Big Four firms together audit 71% (or 545) of those companies.
In terms of market share, the top ten auditors in terms of number of clients is shared by 13 firms (four tied for 10th place).
BDO USA, RSM US, Grant Thornton, Moss Adams, and Marcum round out the top five, each auditing 31 or more companies.
Other Audit Analytics datasets which profile audit firm market share intelligence include:
- Registered Investment Advisors
- Private Funds
- Broker Dealers
- Non-Profit Single Audits
- ERISA Benefit Plans
- NAIC Insurance Companies
- Bank Holding Companies
- Canadian (SEDAR) Filers
- EU Listed Companies and Public Interest Entities
For an online demonstration or to learn more about these data sets, email info@AuditAnalytics.com or call us at (508) 476- 7007.