PricewaterhouseCoopers
Professional ServicesFounded 1849- Updated June 2025
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Last reviewed: June 2025
CorpDigest
PricewaterhouseCoopers
Company History
Founded 1849 in London, United Kingdom
Last reviewed: 2025-06-05 · By Swet Parvadiya
Samuel Lowell Price established his accounting practice in London in 1849 — the same year Charles Pfizer opened his chemical business in Brooklyn, a coincidence that says something about the mid-nineteenth century proliferation of professional specialization. Price, Waterhouse & Co. Formed in 1874 when Price took on partners Edwin Waterhouse and William Holyland. The firm's early clients included the earliest public companies created by the new Companies Acts requiring external audit — a regulatory requirement that created the audit industry and guaranteed a permanent revenue base for those who entered early.
Coopers & Lybrand traced its lineage to three separate founding partnerships: William Cooper's London firm from 1854, and the American firm of Lybrand, Ross Brothers & Montgomery established in 1898. The 1957 combination of Cooper Brothers and McDonald, Currie and Company in the United Kingdom, followed by the 1973 global merger with Lybrand, Ross Brothers & Montgomery, created Coopers & Lybrand as a genuinely international firm.
The 1998 merger announcement stunned the professional services industry. Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand had been fierce competitors for the same blue-chip audit clients for decades. Combining them created the largest professional services firm in history, instantly surpassing Andersen Worldwide (as Arthur Andersen was then structured) by headcount and revenue. The transaction took eighteen months to complete and required regulatory approval in dozens of jurisdictions.
The Booz & Company acquisition in 2014, renaming the firm Strategy& within the PwC network, was the most consequential move since the 1998 merger — an explicit statement that PwC intended to compete for the large-scale strategy and transformation assignments that had been the exclusive domain of pure-play consulting firms. It brought 3,000 consultants and significant client relationships. It also deepened the independence conflict that regulators have continued to scrutinize.
Samuel Lowell Price opened his accounting office in London in 1849, capitalizing on the rapid expansion of the British railway network and the new regulatory requirements for independent audits established by the UK Companies Act of 1844. His firm, Price Waterhouse, became renowned for its rigorous audit quality and integrity, establishing the foundation for the modern accounting profession. Price's emphasis on independence and meticulous record-setting created a culture of excellence that persisted through the firm's expansion into the United States and Asia, ultimately forming the conservative, audit-centric heritage of the PwC network following the 1998 merger.
William Cooper and his brothers established their London-based accounting practice in 1854, focusing on the audit of industrial and commercial enterprises during a period of massive British industrial expansion. Recognizing the growing importance of the American market, Cooper's firm expanded to New York in 1874, creating a powerful transatlantic network. This firm eventually merged with Lybrand, Ross Brothers & Montgomery in 1957 to form Coopers & Lybrand. Cooper's legacy is one of aggressive commercial expansion and the establishment of a consulting-oriented culture that emphasized entrepreneurial growth and cross-border service delivery, providing the dynamic counterweight to Price Waterhouse's traditional audit heritage in the modern PwC entity.
Edward Lybrand, along with his brothers and partner Ross, founded Lybrand, Ross Brothers & Montgomery in New York City in 1898, at the height of the American industrial boom. The firm quickly gained a reputation for its expertise in complex corporate finance and industrial audits, serving many of the largest manufacturing and infrastructure companies in the United States. Lybrand's firm was characterized by its aggressive growth, deep expertise in management consulting, and strong American commercial focus. In 1957, the firm merged with the London-based Cooper Brothers to form Coopers & Lybrand, creating a transatlantic giant. Lybrand's contribution to the modern PwC entity is the deep American commercial acumen, the robust management consulting capabilities, and the entrepreneurial spirit that balanced the British audit heritage of the Price Waterhouse side of the 1998 merger.
Samuel Lowell Price opens an accounting office in London, England, laying the foundation for what would become Price Waterhouse, capitalizing on the new audit requirements of the UK Companies Act of 1844.
William Cooper and his three brothers establish William Cooper & Brothers in London, focusing on the audit of industrial enterprises and eventually expanding to the United States in 1874.
Edward Lybrand and partners establish their firm in New York City, which would grow to become a dominant force in American accounting and management consulting before merging with Cooper Brothers.
The London-based Cooper Brothers and the American Lybrand, Ross Brothers & Montgomery merge to form Coopers & Lybrand, creating a powerful transatlantic accounting network.
Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand complete their historic merger, creating PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and instantly establishing one of the largest professional services networks in the world.
Following the collapse of Arthur Andersen and the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, PwC navigates the new regulatory environment, implementing enhanced quality control and independence protocols while absorbing significant market share.
PwC initiates a massive, multi-billion-dollar investment in proprietary audit technology, data analytics, and global delivery centers, fundamentally modernizing its service delivery model and shifting away from pure manual testing.
In response to growing investor and regulatory demand, PwC launches a comprehensive global ESG practice, committing significant resources to help clients navigate climate risk, sustainability reporting, and the transition to a low-carbon economy.
PwC announces over $1 billion in strategic investments in artificial intelligence and generative AI, partnering with major technology providers to integrate AI across its assurance, advisory, and tax service lines.
PwC network firms report global revenue of $59.4 billion for the fiscal year ending June 2024, reflecting 4% growth in constant currency and demonstrating the firm's resilience and continued market dominance despite economic headwinds.
PwC acquired the management consulting division of Booz & Company to add top-tier strategy consulting capabilities and compete directly with McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group. Booz & Company had separated from Booz Allen Hamilton in 2008 and was one of the most respected strategy consulting brands globally.
PwC acquired Diamond Management and Technology Consultants, a specialized strategy and technology consulting firm, to rebuild its consulting practice after having sold PwC Consulting to IBM in 2002. Diamond brought technology strategy and innovation capabilities that were increasingly demanded by corporate clients.
PwC has made numerous smaller acquisitions of regional consulting and technology firms to build sector-specific expertise and geographic capabilities. These tuck-in acquisitions typically add between 50 and 500 professionals with specialized knowledge in areas including financial crime, cyber security, healthcare, and technology implementation.
PricewaterhouseCoopers as a single firm was created on July 1, 1998, through the merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers and Lybrand, but the underlying lineage stretches back to 1849. In that year, Samuel Lowell Price established an accounting practice in London at 5 Gresham Street, forming what would eventually become Price Waterhouse. William Hopkins Holyland and Edwin Waterhouse joined Price in subsequent partnerships, with the firm becoming Price, Waterhouse and Company in 1874. Independently, William Cooper founded Cooper Brothers in London in 1854. Cooper Brothers later merged with the American firm Lybrand, Ross Bros. & Montgomery in 1957 to form Coopers and Lybrand internationally. For most of the 20th century, Price Waterhouse and Coopers and Lybrand operated as two of the Big Eight global accounting firms, then the Big Six, in independent competition. The 1998 merger was driven by the need to compete at scale against rivals during a period of accelerating consolidation, including the 1989 merger that created Ernst and Young and the 1989 merger that created KPMG. The combined firm took the brand PricewaterhouseCoopers, retaining lineage from both sides.
The July 1998 merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers and Lybrand collapsed the Big Six accounting industry to the Big Five and created what was, at the time, the largest professional services firm in the world. Combined revenue at merger was approximately $15 billion across audit, tax, and consulting, with roughly 140,000 partners and staff across more than 150 countries. The transaction was driven by client demands for global integrated service delivery, particularly for multinational audits where independent national firms had proven unwieldy. Regulatory approval required some divestitures and conflict resolution among shared clients. The merger triggered defensive responses across the industry, including the subsequent push by Andersen Consulting to separate from Arthur Andersen, completed in 2000 as Accenture. After the 2002 collapse of Arthur Andersen following the Enron scandal, the industry consolidated further into the Big Four: PwC, Deloitte, EY, and KPMG. PwC retained leadership in audit market share among large public companies for years, anchored partly by the Price Waterhouse heritage of conservative audit practice and the Coopers and Lybrand depth in tax and advisory.
PricewaterhouseCoopers is structured as a network of independent member firms rather than a single legal entity, a model common across the Big Four professional services industry. PwC International Limited, incorporated in England and Wales, serves as the coordinating entity that sets brand standards, methodology, technology platforms, and quality controls used by member firms worldwide. Each country's PwC firm, including PwC US LLP, PwC UK, PwC Canada, PwC China, and PwC Germany, is a separate legal partnership owned and operated locally. This structure has several advantages. Local partnerships can be regulated under local accountancy rules, hold local audit licenses, and limit liability across borders. The network supports more than 370,000 employees globally and operates in over 150 countries. Coordination is led by the Global Chairman and Senior Partner, currently Mohamed Kande, supported by a Global Leadership Team. Revenue is reported aggregately across the network, though the financial results of individual member firms are not publicly disclosed in detail. The network structure has been criticized for limiting transparency and accountability across borders, an issue underscored by the 2023 China audit controversies.
PwC's coordinating entity, PwC International Limited, is registered and headquartered at Embankment Place in London, United Kingdom. Practical day-to-day global coordination, however, runs out of multiple anchor offices. The Global Chairman and Senior Partner, currently Mohamed Kande as of 2024, operates between the London headquarters and major hub offices in New York, Frankfurt, Shanghai, and Dubai depending on engagement. Each individual PwC member firm has its own national or regional headquarters: PwC US is run from New York, with major offices in Chicago, San Jose, Dallas, and Washington DC. PwC UK is run from London. The Global Leadership Team meets regularly and sets firm-wide policy on methodology, technology, audit quality, ethics and independence, and brand standards. The day-to-day operations of member firms remain locally controlled, including partner promotions, client decisions, compensation, and partnership distributions. Coordination across borders is reinforced through shared audit software platforms, methodology like the PwC Audit Workbench, and global training programs like the partner Genesis Park leadership development.
Both predecessor firms grew substantially through the 20th century as the global accounting profession expanded with industrialization, capital markets, and corporate income tax. Price Waterhouse opened a US office in New York in 1890 and over the next century built a leading position auditing major American corporations including General Electric, Coca-Cola, and Boeing. Coopers and Lybrand, formed in 1957 by the merger of Coopers Brothers in the UK with Lybrand, Ross Bros. & Montgomery in the US, grew aggressively through international expansion into Latin America, Asia, and continental Europe. Both firms branched into management consulting during the 1960s and 1970s, then expanded tax practices in the 1980s as international tax structuring became more sophisticated. By 1989, when Ernst and Young and KPMG both formed via mergers, Price Waterhouse and Coopers and Lybrand were the only two remaining standalone Big Six firms. After failed merger talks with several other firms over the 1990s, including a discussed Price Waterhouse and KPMG merger that collapsed in 1998, Price Waterhouse and Coopers and Lybrand completed their own merger that July.