Carmine Di Sibio released the details of the EY break up plan on a firmwide webcast on July 28, 2022.

There will be two companies – Assureco and Newco.

Voting on the transaction will happen in November 2022 to January 2023. The transaction would most likely take place towards the end of 2023.

Assureco – $20 billion of valuation

Assureco will retain the ‘old’ EY name.

Assureco would retain the old member firm structure that EY currently has.

Assureco would be the standalone audit firm. EY hopes that by breaking this entity apart, they can pursue more audit contracts.

People could make audit partner faster according to EY internal board members.

This would be a unique opportunity in the marketplace since no one else is doing this

Some tax team members will be part of Assureco.

Newco – $25 billion

Newco will perform no public audits.

This will be the consulting company that goes public.

Partners will still own the company in a partnership format. They will be similar to goldman sachs.

Partners would own the majority of Newco while a minority of the ownership would be open to the public and employees

EY views that having a huge tax practice inside of a consulting firm is a huge opportunity. They would be the only consulting firm with a separate tax practice.

The new firm will spend a considerable amount on marketing similar to Accenture after it broke off from Arthur Andersen. Accenture generated more than $50 billion in revenue for the past year, so you can see why EY might want to split off its consulting arm. Many people will say that EY will be facing tough times after the split, but I’m sure people said the same thing about Accenture.

Timing

According to the CEO, EY would finish this break up in the end of 2023.

  1. the first step is that ey has to get the 15 largest locations together to come up with recommendations
  2. the second step is that ey would have member firm information sessions to educate their partners (EY IS HERE RIGHT NOW) 
  3. third step is that ey partners would vote on the deal
  4. ey would execute the logistics of the split up
  5. newco would go public

Compensation and promotion

EY says that compensation and promotions will be better after the transaction.

They see double digit growth in both companies after the transaction.

Updates

December 2022 – EY announce CEO of Newco and Assureco. Carmine DiSibio will be the Global Chair and CEO of Newco and Julie Boland will be Global Chair and CEO of Assureco. Julie Boland is currently the US CEO of EY. Carmine DiSibio is the Global CEO of EY.

January 10, 2023 – EY names Jamie Miller as CFO of newco. Jamie Miller was previously the CFO of Cargill and GE.

March 10, 2023 – News has been released that there is some infighting at EY and the breakup plan at EY is on hold.

April 11, 2023 – EY announced that they are scrapping their Project Everest plan. They plan to split at some point but not under the specifics of Project Everest.

April 17, 2023 –  EY holds webcast in the U.S. to discuss next steps. 3,000 employees will be laid off in the United States. Tax and audit will not be impacted. The layoffs will be focused in consulting and will mainly be related to M&A and venture capital.