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PwC Equity Partner Pay Isn’t Too Shabby In the U.K.

Posted on by Jason Bramwell

Equity partners at PwC in the U.K. didn’t quite get the haul that their fellow equity partners at Deloitte U.K. got recently, but let’s just say they aren’t going hungry anytime soon.

From the Financial Times:

More than 900 equity partners, who share in PwC UK’s profits, will receive an average £765,000 for the year to June 2019 — a 7 per cent pay increase from £712,000 last year, according to the company’s results on Monday. The figure is the highest since 2009, when partners earned a record £777,000.

Papa Whiskey Charlie revealed on Sept. 16 that profit for the 2019 financial year topped more than £1 billion, up from £938 million in 2018.

The firm’s revenue, which also includes results from PwC Middle East, went up 12% to £4.23 billion in 2019, allowing PwC to retain the title of the largest U.K. accounting firm in terms of revenue. Assurance was the top revenue-generator of PwC’s four main business lines with £1.4 billion, followed by tax at £1.1 billion, consulting at £950 million, and deals at £773 million.

But PwC isn’t No. 1 in the distributable profit per partner category. That is led by Deloitte, which paid out an average of £882,000 to its 699 equity partners for the year ending May 31.

Big 4 firms seem to be giving the middle finger to critics who say they shouldn’t be throwing that kind of money at partners after being fined millions of pounds by U.K. regulators for doing really bad audits. In June 2018, PwC was fined £6.5 million by the Financial Reporting Council for its horrible audit of the now-defunct British retailer BHS.

One of those critics is longtime Big 4 nuisance Prem Sikka:

EY should release its 2019 U.K. results in late October, while KPMG will likely release its U.K. revenue in early December.

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It’s been just over two weeks since the death of Angela Pan, an audit associate in PwC’s Shanghai office. One report of her death have quoted doctors stating that “Based on her symptoms and her low white blood cell count, it’s reasonable to conclude that overwork led to a weakened immune system, which makes her more vulnerable to infections.” It was also reported she told a friend she was working 18-hour days and about 120 hours a week prior to her sickness and death. However, Shanghaiist (yes, that’s the Gothamist for Shanghai) published a portion of a statement from PwC that stated that Angela died from viral encephalitis not acute cerebral meningitis as had been reported. An internal email from PwC in China found its way into our inbox late last week and it seems to echo the press release and provides other details.

[Ed. note: the second paragraph included HR and press contacts for those needing them so I’ve omitted those here. It did state that the information should only “be communicated verbally.”]

The date on the email was April 20th and the Shanghaiist article is dated April 15th, so whether this communiqué provides additional details, it isn’t entirely clear. The most confusing statement for me in this email is “as a sign of respect to Angela and her family, we have made a decision not to clarify the misreporting in the media at this time.” Seems to me that the respectful thing would be to correct the “misrepresented” facts if they are in fact correct. Of course this is happening in China where we can only assume what qualifies as a “respectful” action might differ from what is respectful in the U.S. Regardless, it’s terribly unfortunate that a young woman’s death had to serve as a reminder for everyone to take a closer look at their own health and behavior, as well as how culture and working environment may cause some to feel pressure to be at work when they shouldn’t.