Gordon Bennett! PwC UK Had a Bad Year

Posted on by Going Concern News Desk
exterior of PwC building with logo

The good news is partner pay is up. Oh but they had to do some layoffs. Sorry, grunts.

PwC UK reported revenue this week and they did so using thousands of millions: £6,353 million — or, as reasonable people would say, £6.35 billion ($8.6 billion USD) or even a generously rounded-up £6.4 billion. FY24 revenue of £6.3 billion saw a 9% jump from FY23 thanks to exceptional performance in the Middle East while FY25 came in at a paltry 0.4% growth because the Middle East could no longer carry the team to a small W.

ME business plummeted from 26% growth in 2024 to just 0.4%. In retaliation for sucking so hard, PwC cut 60 partners and 1,500 staff in the Middle East this year.

The dramatic decline in Middle East business comes as no surprise after the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund barred PwC from picking up contracts for a year in February and, like every other region in the world, the Middle East has started shying away from big consulting contracts in general. Wanna see something funny?

FT:

In last year’s annual report, the firm had assumed “robust” revenue growth for the region for both 2025 and 2026.

You know what they say about assuming.

Consulting (-3%) and risk (-2.93%) took losses while audit (+0.3%) and deals (+3.7%) at least saw some gains and tax (+5.6%) had the most impressive performance though that’s not really saying much.

Despite the rough year, PwC UK eked partner pay up from £862,000 ($1.161 million USD) in 2024 to £865,000 ($1.164 million USD) in 2025. Wow we really had to dig deep on the decimal points to find the difference in freedom bucks there.

While global revenue numbers for the Big 4 have yet to come out, what we’ve seen from the countries so far isn’t looking good. Like KPMG Australia reporting a -3% in revenue growth but we were hoping that was just KPMG being KPMG and the Chadliest of professional services firms could squeeze out at least a couple percent. Perhaps the global numbers will surprise us (LOL).

Are we thinking at least one Big 4 firm will come in at a loss this year?

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During the 1099 Repeal Debate, a Democrat More or Less Called a Bunch of Republicans Liars, Then Took it Back, and Then May Have Called Them Liars Again

The repeal of the 1099 reporting provision of the healthcare reform bill was finally passed by the House today but not before things got a little awkward when Represenative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) “said Republican claims that the law is a government takeover of healthcare had been deemed ‘the 2010 political lie of the year.’ “

Now, on its surface, this seems like a little bit of tangential grandstanding by the man-child gentleman from Oregon but his colleague Dan Lungren (R-CA) didn’t appreciate the remark and was not about to let this slide:

Blumenauer seemed to gesture toward Lungren, who had just finished speaking, and said the Republican member called the healthcare law a government takeover.

Lungren did not directly say the law is a government takeover, but did criticize the laws in other ways.

After Blumenauer’s “lie of the year” comment, Lungren quickly interrupted to raise a point of order and ask whether Blumenauer should be allowed to say, or imply, that Lungren is a liar.

Blumenauer – not to be outdone – countered this challenge with one of his own:

Asked if he was demanding Blumenauer’s words be “taken down” — a challenge to their propriety — Lungren said no, but did ask the acting Speaker to warn members about referring to colleagues in this way.

The exchange continued: Blumenauer said he was simply citing a Politifact finding that Republican claims of a government healthcare takeover are the political lie of the year. Lungren then immediately asked that Blumenauer’s words be taken down.

Blumenauer, knowing he was beat, then capitulated (he’s a Democrat, after all), “Several minutes later, Blumenauer asked unanimous consent to strike his words,” and then thought better of it, “[he] repeated the Politifact citation again in his explanatory comments.”

“I’m not calling anybody a liar,” Blumenauer said. “What I intended to say … is that as we have repeated talking points about a government takeover of healthcare, this has been judged by an independent undertaking as the political lie of the year.”

It could probably go either way but someone seems to be getting called a liar in there somewhere.

Lawmakers spar over ‘lie of the year’ in debate over healthcare provision [Floor Action/The Hill]