Grant Thornton

Grant Thornton Profile & Stats

As a leading financial and business adviser, Grant Thornton UK LLP has offices in 30 locations across the UK, more than 25,000 individual and 15,000 corporate and institutional clients, and now regularly posts revenues in excess of the $1 billion barrier.

Grant Thornton International is an umbrella organisation that encompasses 100 independently owned and managed accounting and consulting firms worldwide, including Grant Thornton UK. This accounting network employs more than 2,400 partners in over 100 countries and over 29,000 people globally. The UK branch, Grant Thornton UK, generates the second highest profits after its US counterpart and it is the fifth largest accounting firm in the UK – a position it seems content to maintain, rather than attempt to break into the Big Four.

In 1924, 26-year-old Alexander Richardson Grant – then a Chicago based senior-accountant with Ernst & Ernst (now Ernst & Young) – left the relative comfort of an established company to pursue his plan for public accounting. He subsequently founded Alexander Grant & Co – a firm committed to providing services to mid-sized companies; this stance is still held by the firm today.

The 1950s and early 1960s were times of explosive growth and centralisation for the firm. During the mid-1960s the firm’s leadership decided it was the ideal time to expand internationally. In 1969, Alexander Grant & Co joined with firms from Australia, Canada, and the UK to establish the organisation of Alexander Grant Tansley Witt.

By 1980, Alexander Grant & Co had joined with 49 other accounting firms – most notably Thornton Baker in the UK, a firm with similar qualities, clients and values. These alliances culminated in the founding of Grant Thornton International, in 1986, when US firm Alexander Grant merged with UK firm Thornton Baker. Then in 2007, Grant Thornton UK merged with Robson Rhodes – the biggest merger in the UK since PricewaterhouseCoopers’ inception in 1998 – to become the fifth largest accounting firm in the UK.

The UK’s outpost has three main departments: audit, tax and advisory. It does however offer additional services, including corporate finance, business risk services, forensic investigation services, financial advisory, recovery and reorganisation, renewable energy and environment services, fraud insolvency and technology services. The firm provides these services to more than 40,000 individuals, privately-held businesses and public interest entities. And the vast majority of AIM-listed companies automatically look to Grant Thornton for their services – a situation reflected by a client list 40% greater than its closest rival.

Grant Thornton’s audit services are particularly commendable. The independent Takeover Panel that supervises and regulates takeovers and mergers recently named Grant Thornton UK as their new external auditor – a role previously bestowed to PricewaterhouseCoopers. This makes Grant Thornton the external auditor for three important regulatory bodies, as it also audits the Financial Services Authority and Institute of Chartered Accountants, in England and Wales.

Additionally, Grant Thornton produces an annual review of corporate governance in the FTSE 350, which has become a standard reference document on the market.