The other night I was bored to tears while my wife and my 13-year-old daughter were watching The Vampire Diaries on Netflix. So I poured myself a beer and hopped on to Vault’s website to see if they released their newest Accounting 50 rankings yet, as they usually do in April. They had not. It’ll be out on April 14.
The most recent ranking from Vault was their Banking 50. My wife and my FIL both work in banking, so I thought I’d check it out to see which financial institutions were on there (theirs weren’t).
As I scrolled through the list, the usual suspects appeared: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, UBS, J.P. Morgan, Credit Suisse, Barclays, Citi, Deutsche Bank, and even the much-maligned Wells Fargo.
But as I got to the bottom feeders on the list, I saw this:
WTF?
I mean, I knew both firms provide financial advisory and investment banking services to clients, but top 50? Really? I was NOT expecting to see two of the Final Four Horsemen of the Accounting Firm Apocalypse on this list, but whatever. It gave me something to write about other than coronavirus-related layoffs and pay cuts at accounting firms.
To my surprise, Deloitte Corporate Finance has been a mainstay on this list since Vault started ranking the best banking firms based on an annual survey of banking professionals in 2011. Deloitte has finished in the top 50 each year, with an average finish of 35.8. EY Capital Advisors has been ranked the past five years, with an average finish of 46.2.
KPMG Corporate Finance and PwC Corporate Finance joined the party in 2017—the last time all Big 4 firms made the Vault Banking 50.
Adrienne once called Deloitte “the Walmart of professional services.” So what does that make EY? Big Lots?
