Data from some of the biggest quoted companies by market capitalization in Nigeria reveals the big 4 audit firms earned a whopping N6.4 billion in audit fees for the year ended December 2016. The big 4 audit firms in Nigeria are PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), KPMG, Deloitte and Ernst & Young.
The fees were earned by auditing about 28 of Nigeria’s biggest firms cutting across the banking sector, consumer goods, cement and oil and gas. According to the data obtained by Nairametrics research, the big four increased their earnings by 9% year on year after earnings about N5.78 billion in 2015. The 28 companies under review made a combined N6.2 trillion in revenues for the period thus audit fees as a percentage of revenues was 0.1% of revenues.
According to our research, PWC carted away with the most fees earnings about N2.5 billion in 2016 (2015: N2.2 billion) from auditing 7 companies on our list. KPMG was next as the audit firm earned N2 billion in 2016 a 15% increase from the 1.7 billion received as fees in 2015. The auditors also got to audit about 10 of the companies in our list.
Ernst and Young, another of the big 4, also earned about N1.1 billion in 2016, auditing 6 of the companies on the list and a 4% dip from the N1.2 billion earned in 2015. It is important to note that of the 28 companies in our list, the oil and gas firms went the way of EY.
Deloitte recorded the largest percentage increase in earning after income rose by 30% to N530.2 million compared to N406 million earned a year earlier. Deloitte relied majorly on income from Dangote Cement which rose 38% year on year in the period under review. Deloitte was able to audit the financial statements of 4 of the companies in our list.
KPMG
The data reveals KPMG’s earnings mostly came from the banking sector with about 83% of its earnings coming from the banking sector alone. KPMG currently audits about 1 out of Nigeria’s biggest banks including two of the big 5 which we like to call FUGAZ (FBNH, UBA, GTB, Access Bank and Zenith Bank) on Nairametrics. The audit firm also relies heavily on Zenith Bank for about 31% of its total earnings from the 10 companies it audits from our list of 28. KPMG audited 10 companies in our list.
PWC
PWC earned a total of N2.5 billion in 2016 out of which 4 of the FUGAZ contributed about 92% of its earnings. PWC also only these audits 4 banks from the 11 banks on our list. Apart from the banks, PWC also audited PZ, Transcorp and Guinness making up just 8% of its earnings.
EY
Ernst & Young earned about N1.3 billion from just 7 audit firms by focussing on auditing big oil and gas firms. With the likes of Oando, Seplat and Mobil on its billing oil and gas made up about 46 % of its total earnings from the list of companies under review. The audit firm relied on Oando for about 31% of its revenue per the list of companies under review. It also included two banks on its list, Fidelity and Sterling Bank while Lafarge made up about 14.2% of total audit earnings. Ernst & Young appears to be the most diverse in terms of sector coverage of the companies on our list.
Deloitte
Deloitte surprisingly does not have any of the big 11 banks as clients for the period under review. However, it does audit Nigeria’s largest company by market capitalization, Dangote Cement Plc and 3 other companies on the lit. It’s important to also add that Deloitte shares this bill with Ahmed Zakaria, an audit firm. Nevertheless, Dangote Cement makes up about 75% of its revenue from the data set reviewed by Nairametrics. Dangote Group also accounts for about 85% of its revenue per the data under review.
See table below (All fees in thousands)
[wpdatatable id=208 table_view=regular]
Do you need the raw data set used for this article? Send an email to Nairametrics via [email protected]
NB: An original version of this article listed Stanbic IBTC & UAC as companies audited by PWC. This has now ben corrected. Thanks to our readers for pointing this out.
Working in the big4 seems to be a hedge against a bad economy. This N6.5bn is not even a total reflection of their earnings. EY audits SPDC, PwC audits AFC, CMB, CBN and NSIA. Mostly Financial services. Deloitte has a lot of clients in consumer goods and I.T,
KPMG, well I don’t like them so I don’t know anything about them.
This is an underestimation. Many of their clients are private limited liabilities companies. Their revenue will be way much higher. For example, PWC audits 7 companies in the entity where i work.
The big 4 the best
Please I need an audit firm out the big 4 with high reputation in Nigeria
Please re evaluate my current portfolio for self, my children, including serrogates.