Colourful history of Big Four wins prestigious Ashurst Business Literature Prize

A riveting commentary on the 'Big Four' accounting and audit firms – Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PwC – has won Australia's most significant award for business writing, the 2018 Ashurst Business Literature Prize.

In The Big Four: The Curious Past and Perilous Future of the Global Accounting Monopoly (La Trobe University Press), Stuart Kells and Ian D Gow reveal the fascinating story of wealth, power and luck behind these global powerhouses, whose founders led surprisingly colourful lives.

The 'Big Four' are influential across the globe with more than US$100 billion in annual earnings and almost one million employees. Today, they face an uncertain future thanks to their push into China; their vulnerability to digital disruption and competition; and the hazards of providing traditional services in a new era of transparency.

According to Richard Fisher AM, chair of the judging panel: "The Big Four traces the development of accounting practice and practices from the Renaissance and the Medici Bank through the evolution of the large firms to the current day, including their engagement with China. The authors then look to the future and ask: are these firms sufficiently robust and resilient to survive the challenges that confront them going forward?"

The independent judging panel, comprising Mr Fisher, Narelle Hooper and Margie Seale, selected The Big Four as the winner from a shortlist of five. The other shortlisted works were:

• The Price of Fortune by Damon Kitney (HarperCollins Publishers);
• Swanston: Merchant Statesman by Eleanor Robin (Australian Scholarly Publishing);
• Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life at the Edge of the World by Michelle Scott Tucker (Text Publishing); and
• The Lives of Brian by Brian Sherman and AM Jonson (Melbourne University Publishing).

Launched by Ashurst in 2004 and administered by the State Library of NSW, the A$30,000 annual Ashurst Business Literature Prize was established to encourage the highest standards of literary commentary on business and financial affairs by an Australian author.

Stuart Kells accepted the Prize from keynote speaker Jillian Broadbent AC, Chancellor of the University of Wollongong, at the Awards dinner at Ashurst in Sydney tonight (15 May).

Ashurst Sydney office managing partner, Anita Cade commented: "Ashurst is delighted to have awarded the Business Literature Prize for 2018 to Stuart and Ian for their book The Big Four, and we congratulate them both. This year's shortlist was a formidable group of impressive Australian authors. On behalf of Ashurst, I thank each of them for their contribution to the Prize and for adding further to the rich fabric of Australian business life."

State Librarian John Vallance said: "I’m looking forward to working with Ashurst to build further on the prize’s considerable success to the point where it becomes an internationally recognised model for the support of fearless writing about business that colours our lives."

About the authors

Ian D Gow is currently at Harvard Business School and will soon take up a professorship at the University of Melbourne. Before Harvard, he held positions at Morgan Stanley, General Motors, Stern Stewart & Co. and Andersen Consulting. He has a PhD in business from Stanford University, an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School and degrees in commerce and law from UNSW.

Stuart Kells is Adjunct Professor at La Trobe Business School. His history on Penguin Books, Penguin and the Lane Brothers, won the 2015 Ashurst Business Literature Prize. His book, The Library, was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award (non-fiction) and the NSW Premier’s History Award (general history).