KPMG UK and Swiss partners approve merger, creating $4.4 billion firm

KPMG’s UK and Swiss partners approved a merger that created a $4.4 billion firm, bringing 25,000 people into one regional platform and giving Jon Holt and Stefan Pfister a larger base from which to steer the network’s next moves. KPMG said the combined business would be the second largest in its network by some distance, a scale shift that matters less as a corporate headline than as a signal of where power, investment and promotion paths are heading inside the firm.

The new structure put Holt, KPMG UK’s chief executive and senior partner, in charge as Group CEO, with Pfister, the CEO of KPMG Switzerland, as Group Deputy CEO. A new Group Executive Committee, drawn from UK and Swiss senior leadership, took on decision-making for the larger partnership, while the two firms remained separate legal entities governed by national laws and supervision. That arrangement preserves local compliance lines, but it also concentrates influence over where the firm spends on audit quality, AI, talent development and managed services.

For staff, the clearest upside is mobility. KPMG said the combination opened new markets and client opportunities, and the firm has tied the merger to its broader Global Collective Strategy and clustering approach. In practice, that can mean more cross-border staffing on audit, tax and legal work, plus more advisory teams built around multinational clients instead of country-by-country delivery. It also means more competition for the roles that matter most in a partnership model: sector leaders, engagement partners and the people who control access to the biggest accounts.

The downside is just as real. When two national practices are folded into a larger cluster, overlapping leadership roles, different ways of running busy-season teams and conflicting local priorities can create friction long before any formal restructuring is announced. The merger left day-to-day operations with separate management committees, but the strategic direction now sits higher up the chain, which can make it harder for local leaders to protect their own budgets, hiring plans and advancement pipelines.

KPMG’s numbers show why the firm is leaning into scale. KPMG UK reported revenue of £2.99 billion for the year ended 30 September 2024, then the UK-Swiss group reported £3.6 billion in revenue and £576 million in profit before tax for the year ended 30 September 2025, its first full year after the merger took effect on 1 October 2024. KPMG has also linked other integrations, including KPMG Saudi Levant and KPMG Lower Gulf, to the same clustering strategy. For employees, the direction is clear: the contest is moving from single-country firms to larger regional blocs that can fund more technology, more compliance and more competition for the best work.