KPMG

KPMG is a professional service company, being one of the Big Four auditors, along with Deloitte, EY and PwC.

Seated in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, KPMG employs 174,000 people and has three lines of services: audit, tax, and advisory. Its tax and advisory services are further divided into various service groups.

The name "KPMG" was chosen when KMG (Klynveld Main Goerdeler) merged with Peat Marwick.

History

Early years and mergers

The firm's history dates back to 1870 when William Barclay Peat joined an accounting firm in London and took it over, as William Barclay Peat & Co., in 1891. In 1877 accountancy firm Thomson McLintock opened an office in Glasgow.

Meanwhile, in 1917 Piet Klijnveld opened his accounting firm in Amsterdam. Later he merged with Kraayenhof to form Klynveld Kraayenhof & Co.

In 1925 William Barclay Peat & Co. and Marwick Mitchell & Co. (a firm founded by James Marwick and Roger Mitchell in New York), merged to form Peat Marwick Mitchell & Company (later known simply as Peat Marwick).