Carmine Di Sibio set out on a mission to overhaul EY’s business structure in 2022. Nicknamed ‘Project Everest’, the EY plan will split the firm’s faster-growing consulting business and its larger auditing business into two separate entities.
The firm’s audit business is set to continue as a network of partnerships named AssureCo, whereas its consulting business will become a public company called NewCo. Project Everest is the biggest planned shift in the accounting industry in 20 years.
Not only does this fundamentally change EY, but the results of this split may also send a message to the other ‘big four’ firms. If Project Everest is successful, EY may become an example for Deloitte, KPMG and PwC to follow.
Tax advisers across the industry were surprised that Di Sibio would undertake such radical action. Nothing like this has happened since the collapse of Arthur Andersen in 2002. Back then, the remaining big four firms decided to split-off their consulting businesses in response.
Over the next two decades Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC gradually rebuilt and reintegrated their consulting businesses. But Di Sibio has decided to reverse this integration.
Now in his fourth year as CEO and global chairman, Di Sibio faces a choice about the future: step down or stand again. Either way he will have set a precedent for an entire industry.
