Andersen Consulting brand set for resurrection

Stay informed about free updates

Just register to go Accounting & Consulting Services myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.

Andersen Consulting, one of the most powerful professional services firms of the 1990s, is set to be revived with the help of the man who led the consulting firm for a decade.

This revival comes thanks to Andersen Global, a tax business founded by alumni of the former parent company, auditor Arthur Andersen, which collapsed in 2002 after the Enron reporting scandal. The Andersen Consulting name has been inactive since 2000 when the business split from Arthur Andersen and was renamed as. Publication.

Andersen Global has been quietly building its consulting arm after hiring George Shaheen, who was Andersen Consulting’s chief executive from 1989 to 1999, as a senior consultant. It plans to launch the historic brand next month, people familiar with the effort said.

Andersen Global was founded 23 years ago by Mark Vorsatz, who was a tax partner at Arthur Andersen, initially under the name WTAS. It acquired the rights to the Andersen brand and named itself in 2014. The business is organized as a partnership of independent member organizations and other organizations with a combined annual revenue of $2.5bn.

Until now, it has focused on tax and legal work but – like Arthur Andersen before it, and many accounting and tax businesses today – has been tempted by the opportunity to sell more services to clients.

In the last six months it has added 20 member firms in the US and around the world that are focused on consult each othersaid people familiar with the deals.

Several people have ties to Andersen Consulting or Arthur Andersen, the people said. They include Verraki, an African IT solutions business led by the former head of Accenture Nigeria, and Daniels Consulting, a strategy group whose founder was a director at Arthur Andersen when it collapsed.

Andersen Global has also appointed Morgan Stanley to review its US business, which could open up funds to acquire other member firms and consolidate a new advisory business.

In the 1990s, Arthur Andersen’s consulting business was absorbed by the accounting firm that produced it, and its model is still in operation, Vorsatz said.

“Andersen Consulting was the Coca-Cola of professional services,” he said. “If you’re over 40 in business, you know Andersen Consulting.”

Shaheen has been coordinating business development for new Andersen Global member firms, with a focus on providing consulting services from strategic advice and IT transformation to cyber security -color and stability. He said it will not compete with one of Accenture’s major businesses as an outsourcing service provider.

“Accenture is a great firm, but we don’t plan to do it again,” he said.

The new Andersen Consulting will also differ from its predecessor from the 1990s in that it will not be tied to the book business, where conflict of interest regulations prevent cross-selling to clients.

“Today Andersen doesn’t have that independence and we can be as aggressive as we need to be,” Shaheen said.

Until he left for dotcom venture Webvan, Shaheen led Arthur Andersen’s repeated efforts to win more independence from the accounting firm, in what became one of the biggest announcements of the professional services sector.

For most of the 1990s, Andersen Consulting and Arthur Andersen operated uncomfortably as sister firms under an umbrella organization, but as the accounting business grew the second consulting practice In direct competition, Shaheen filed for divorce.

Andersen Consulting was forced by a judge to give up this name as part of a legal separation in late 2000. Accenture, which floated in the United States the following year, is now the world’s largest consulting firm by width in money.