Hello ppl,

just wondering if anyone could tell me which is the best audit firm in Karchi out of the big 4, for training and work experience...... iwould like to join any one of them after finishing my ACCA in June hopefully, but which one should be my priority ????

There is no one other than A.F. Ferguson this is a member firm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers(PwC) and it is the top rated Audit Firm in pakistan, after completion of ACCA you can get your appointment as trainee there but they are reluctant to recruit ACCAs because they already have to recruit many local CA students...

Firms Priority at Karachi is..
=>A.F.Ferguson and Co.(A member firm of PwC)
==>Taseer Hadi Khaled(THK) and Co.(A member firm of KPMG)
===>Ford Rhodes Sidat Hayder and Co.(A member firm of Ernst and Young[EY])
====>Yousaf Adil Saleem and Co.(A member firm of Deloitte and Touche)
=====>Anjum Asim Shahid Rehman and Co.(A member firm of Grant Thornton)
======>Ebrahim and Co.(A member firm of BDO Stoy Hayward)

The International merger between Grant Thornton and RSM Robson Rhodes made things very clear for the furure and hopefully in 3 years time Grant Thornton will be the Fifth Big firm in the world of accountancy because currently they are having 350m+ revenue earning and in 3 years if they able to embark to the level of 5m they will be the fifth big firm...

Do not restrict you in the circle of these Big fours as every one can't be able to recruit in these 4 there are lot of other good firms and they are having very reputed clients in their hands...

There are so many qualifieds of Big 4 working under the qualifieds of small firms, these are your abilities which make the difference...

Regards,

Muhammad Amir

Thanks a lot Amir for ur very helpful reply.................i would definitely like to get into any of the big 4 firms in karachi but it seems that you prefer Ferguson to the others...... why is that?....is it the largest firm here with the most clients????? and will it be more valuable on my resume to hav done my training from there rather than say ford rhodes???

Dear Audit Err,

Preferance of audit firms through client perspective is very different from those of the students, these Big four firms are rated by their revenue which is earned from various sources for example through Management Consultancy, Tax Advising, Audit and other outsourced services like internal audit, this term big 4 is an international termnology used for audit firms having revenue more than 5m sterlings...

Indirectly these huge revenues show that services from these firms are of effective quality and many organisations in world rely on them, thus having huge number of clients including multinationals, banks and other reknowned organisations made them very highly rated option for students because many of us try to be a part of some well knowned organisation and definitely this will impact our future in long term...

The Advantages of these big 4 firms are,

-Having big name

-Qualified of big firm make you prestigeous

-These firms usually involve in audits of multinationals and other big institutions.

-After completion of articles you can be easily and without any reluctance recruited by any prestigeous organisation in your country.

Distdvantages of these Big 4 firms

-Very Less job rotation(task switching)

-Pressure of Big name plus close supervision

-Binding contract often 3 years

-In some cases very few learning oportunities


According to students perspective only big name has nothing important but the most important thing is that the environment of these firms for example if you are working in A.F.Ferguson you will find this environment not suitable because of huge number of CAs there and they difinitely will not prefer ACCAs, similarly Ford Rhodes Sidat Hayder's environment will be very helpful for you because of very huge number of ACCA internees there...

There are other several things which must be taken into account before taking final decision...

I hope this helps you

Regards,

Muhammad Amir

Dear Aamir,

First of all let me thankyou for your very helpful and knowledgeable reply...........

now what i understand is that though AF Ferguson may be the best audit firm in karachi, it will be better for me to opt for ford rhodes as its environment is more suitable for ACCA internees as compared to AF's where CAs are preferred........

i will definitely keep this in mind for the future.......

This was exactly the conclusion of my previous post but only environment is not enough to make prudent decision there are some other factors which must be considered before choosing any firm for example if you are interested in Treasury Management and Portfolio Management then there is no second option beside Ford Rhodes because Ford Rhodes Sidat Hayder has established an entity named as Sidat Hayder Morshed Associates(SHMA) where you can be recruited as Finance Trainee, for example if you have joined Ford Rhodes Sidat Hayder as Audit Trainee but after 1 or 2 years you think that this is not the field of your interest then you can send your request to top management of FRSH that you want to change your area of experiance from audit to finance after some appraisal they can be able to switch you in that particular field but if you join any other firm like KPMG or AFF you may not have this incentive similarly there are other many factors which have to be taken in to account when finalising your decision...

I hope this will further clarify my previous post...

Regards,

Muhammad Amir