Deloitte Going Against The Grain In "Mixing' Accounting, Consulting; Still Under Single Roof; The other Big 5 auditors have separated the units due to fear of conflicts.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)

Publication: Investor's Business Daily

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COPYRIGHT 2005 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.

Byline: J. BONASIA

The firm continues to defy conventional wisdom.

Since the start of the tech downturn, in a trend accelerated by the Enron scandal, all the Big 5 accounting firms sold or spun off their consulting units.

All, that is, except Deloitte.

Deloitte Consulting remains part of accounting/auditing firm Deloitte & Touche, the U.S. unit of global auditor Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

That's not the case at the other big U.S. accounting firms, where the conflict between auditing and consulting created a perceived conflict of interest that created unease and forced changes.

Andersen Consulting split from Arthur Andersen LLP and changed its name to Accenture.

KPMG spun off BearingPoint. CapGemini bought Ernst & Young's consulting unit.

And IBM's IBM Global Services bought PricewaterhouseCoopers' consulting unit.

Deloitte mulled spinning off its consulting arm as well. It even came...

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