In July, KPMG won the audit mandate for medical technology firm Smith & Nephew, severing a 77-year relationship with EY, which was formerly known as Ernst & Young. KPMG has picked up Unilever's audit contract but lost its work with Vodafone as blue-chip companies react to new rules requiring firms to regularly review their audit relationships.
The Royal Mail win comes as KPMG confirmed it will expand its legal services after winning an alternative business structure (ABS) licence from the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority.
Gary Harley, the KPMG partner responsible for rolling out the expanded services, said the firm’s 50-strong legal team is already on track to generate £10m of revenues this year.
“We are in recruitment mode: we have already hired a number of extremely highly regarded lawyers and we continue to attract exceptionally high quality candidates as we add to our team,” he said in a statement.
The company and its Big Four competitors EY, Deloitte and PwC are diversifying away from their accountancy heartland into areas including technology investment funds, cloud computing and strategic advice.
PwC won an ABS licence at the start of the year, allowing it to directly own PwC Legal, which has more than 200 fee-earning lawyers in the UK. EY has recently hired several legal partners, while Deloitte said last month that it would not follow suit and apply for an ABS licence.
The accountancy trade body ICAEW also announced today that it has awarded its first ABS licence to the accountancy firm Kingston Smith. The ICAEW said it expects 250 firms to apply for licences for probate work, after it was granted the power to grant licences in July.
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