PUBLIC ACCOUNTING REPORT'S TOP 100 FOR 1999 INCLUDES ONLY FIRMS THAT DO AUDITING

Unlike the Accounting Today Top 100, the Public Accounting Report (PAR) Top 100 does not include American Express Tax & Business Services, RSM McGladrey, Inc., and the other consolidators. PAR takes the position that a firm must have an auditing practice to be listed. Absent from the list, based on size of an audit practice, is at least one of the firms whose nonattest assets were acquired by a consolidator: McGladrey & Pullen LLP. There no doubt are others. According to Mark Scally, the CEO of RSM McGladrey and a former managing partner of McGladrey & Pullen LLP, the LLP, which does the attest work not acquired by H&R Block, has annual revenues at about the $100 million dollar level.

The gap between the large firms and the rest of the profession is evident in PAR's list. KPMG LLP, the smallest of the Big Five, is almost nine times larger than the next largest firm, Grant Thornton. The combined total revenue of the Big Five is 90% of the total revenue of all 100 firms. And only about 40 firms have revenues of $20 million or more. The 100th largest firm has reported revenues of just over $10 million, 0.14% of top firm Arthur Andersen's $6.8 billion.

It is time, however, for PAR to put the consolidators on the list. Perhaps they should be combined with the accounting partnerships from whom the nonattest assets were acquired. *

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