Marcum dominates 2022 SEC client rankings

Having dominated the quarterly lists of new Securities and Exchange Commission audit engagements for the second half of 2022, Top 25 Firm Marcum topped the rankings for the whole year by a wide margin.

Marcum got a big boost thanks to its September merger with fellow New York-based Top 100 Firm Friedman, which added 69 new clients — but even without that, the firm was still well ahead of its peers, having added 103 clients over the year, and netted 55. (See "Client gains & losses.")

A merger played a major role for the second-biggest gainer this year, though in a different way: Forvis, the new firm that resulted from the June combination of Top 100 Firms BKD and Dixon Hughes Goodman, reported 31 new engagements and a net of 29. (See "Net engagement leaders").

The 656 new engagements signed in 2022 mark a major jump from 2021's 550, which were themselves a big jump from 2020. Client departures, however, also jumped, to 752 from 715 in 2021 — outpacing new client additions for the second year in a row.

Given their overall positions, it's no surprise that Marcum and Forvis led two of the league tables for new clients by type of filer — for non-accelerated filers and smaller reporting companies, where Marcum netted 52, and for accelerated filers and SRCs, where Forvis netted eight. (See "Audit leaders.")

Big Four firm Deloitte, meanwhile, led among new large accelerated filer clients, netting seven. The firm had nine new engagements of this type among the 24 total new clients it brought on in 2022.

Those 24 new clients helped Deloitte lead the annual rankings of new market capitalization audited, new assets audited, and new audit fees. (See "New client leaders.") Mobile phone giant T-Mobile US Inc. made standout contributions in all three areas, including $146 billion in new market cap (out of $174 billion total), $206 billion in new assets (out of $281 billion), and $36.5 million in audit fees (out of $63 million).

KPMG took second place in terms of new market cap, with robotic process automation provider UiPath Inc. making the single biggest contribution, of $15.4 billion. Forvis, meanwhile, took second place in terms of assets audited, almost half of which comprised financial services company SouthState Corp.'s $41.9 billion. And PricewaterhouseCoopers came in second in new audit fees, with global insurance company Enstar Group's $9.3 million the standout.

Data for the rankings are provided by Audit Analytics, a premium online intelligence service delivering audit, regulatory and disclosure analysis. Reach them at (508) 476-7007, info@auditanalytics.com or www.auditanalytics.com.