The most frequently searched question for all Big4s are who are their largest clients. In the previous blog we looked into how PwC stacks in regard to audit clients versus the total S&P 500 Companies. Below is a scatterplot showing the audit fee distribution of PwC clients in the US.
Here is the list of top 25 clients of PwC in terms of total audit fees in millions. The financials and insurance sector are the major contributor in terms of fees for PwC. IBM is the only non-financial and insurance company in the top 5. If you remember in 2002, PwC sold its consulting business to IBM for $2.7 billion. The 2002 sale happened in the aftermath of Aurther Andersen and Enron. The next two companies on the list are pharmaceutical giants J&J and Merck.
Looking through the list, you would find some of the biggest corporate companies in the US. These 25 clients together contribute $1.17 billion in audit fees for PwC. PwC’s total US audit revenues in 2019 was $6.25 billion. These 25 clients contribute 19% of total PwC audit revenues in the US.
| Company | Audit ($ million) | Audit related ($ million) | Tax ($ million) | Other Fee ($ million) | Total fee ($ million) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JPMorgan Chase & Co. | 76.90 | 24.70 | 3.20 | 0 | 104.80 |
| International Business Machines | 54.70 | 30.80 | 2.10 | 0.40 | 88.00 |
| Goldman Sachs Group | 69.70 | 10.80 | 3.90 | 0 | 84.40 |
| American International Group | 49.00 | 19.40 | 1.00 | 1.70 | 71.10 |
| Bank of America Corp | 57.20 | 5.10 | 4.40 | 0 | 66.70 |
| Prudential Financial | 55.00 | 6.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 64.00 |
| Johnson & Johnson | 40.50 | 16.00 | 2.06 | 0.67 | 59.23 |
| Merck & Co. | 30.90 | 16.50 | 5.70 | 1.60 | 54.70 |
| Ford Motor Company | 39.20 | 3.60 | 3.00 | 1.70 | 47.50 |
| DuPont de Nemours Inc | 33.85 | 7.64 | 4.38 | 0.54 | 46.41 |
| Exxon Mobil Corp. | 34.60 | 6.90 | 1.00 | 0 | 42.50 |
| Thermo Fisher Scientific | 23.54 | 2.87 | 13.37 | 0.07 | 39.84 |
| The Walt Disney Company | 30.70 | 4.10 | 3.60 | 0.10 | 38.50 |
| Caterpillar Inc. | 35.5 | 0.6 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 36.40 |
| L3Harris Technologies | 17.31 | 7.09 | 8.82 | 0.06 | 33.27 |
| Interpublic Group | 29.08 | 1.26 | 2.55 | 0.06 | 32.95 |
| American Express Co | 26.55 | 4.52 | 0.43 | 0.1 | 31.59 |
| Exelon Corp. | 26.6 | 1.57 | 2.16 | 0.74 | 31.07 |
| Cisco Systems | 25.04 | 1.98 | 3.73 | 0.05 | 30.8 |
| Chevron Corp. | 28.20 | 1.10 | 0.60 | 0.30 | 30.20 |
| Johnson Controls International | 22.80 | 1.10 | 4.80 | 0.10 | 28.80 |
| Chubb Limited | 26.16 | 0.38 | 1.86 | 0.33 | 28.73 |
| Trane Technologies plc | 12.78 | 7.56 | 7.81 | 0.04 | 28.18 |
| Philip Morris International | 20.46 | 0.69 | 3.59 | 2.10 | 26.84 |
| CIGNA Corp. | 18.97 | 4.92 | 2.24 | 0.63 | 26.77 |
Some of the audit related fees pertain to audit services for carve-outs, acquisitions, divestitures, service organization control reports, retirement and benefit related audits etc.
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