Mazars UK has been named as Goldman Sachs International’s auditor for its London based European operations.
Due to a combination of mandatory audit rotation and a lack of competition, Goldman Sachs revealed it was looking outside of the Big Four for its new auditor last year. The other three members all provide non-audit services, which left PwC as the only Big Four not conflicted.
PwC itself needs to be rotated out by 2022, which left the European arm of the giant US bank looking to the mid-tier for audit services.
This in itself provided some evidence about the lack of competition for auditing large companies in the UK – a topic of much political debate in the country over recent years. Earlier this year the UK Competition and Markets Authority made a series of proposals specifically designed to combat this lack of competition.
Even so, winning the contract is a coup for Mazars. In the most recent IAB UK survey, it was ranked as the 9th largest firm by revenue, while it fell to 11th as a Network in the country, again ranked by revenue.
Mazars will take over the audit in 2021, and no doubt other large companies will be watching to see how a mid-tier firm copes with such a large, international client.
