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Andersen Consulting, one of the most powerful professional services brands of the 1990s, is set to be resurrected with the help of the man who led the consulting firm for a decade.
The revival comes courtesy of Andersen Global, a tax firm founded by students of the company's former parent company, auditor Arthur Andersen, which collapsed in 2002 after the Enron accounting scandal. The Andersen Consulting name has been dormant since 2000 when the business split from Arthur Andersen and was renamed Accenture.
Andersen Global has quietly spun off its consulting arm after hiring George Shaheen, who was Andersen Consulting's chief executive from 1989 to 1999, as a senior consultant. It plans to bring back the historic landmark next month, people familiar with the effort said.
Andersen Global was founded 23 years ago by Mark Vorsatz, a former Arthur Andersen tax partner, initially under the name WTAS. It acquired the rights to the Andersen brand and rebranded in 2014. The business is organized as a group of independent member firms and other partners with a combined annual turnover of 2.5bn.
Until now, it has focused on tax and legal work but – like Arthur Andersen before it, and many accounting and tax businesses today – has been seduced by the opportunity to sell more services to clients.
In the past six months it has added 20 member firms in the US and around the world it focuses on consultationsaid people familiar with the agreements.
Several are in contact with Andersen Consulting or Arthur Andersen, the people said. They include Verraki, an IT business led by the former head of Accenture in Nigeria, and Daniels Consulting, a strategic group whose founder was a manager at Arthur Andersen when it collapsed.
Andersen Global has also hired Morgan Stanley to oversee the spin-off of its US business, which could free up capital to acquire other member firms and consolidate a new consulting business.
By the 1990s, Arthur Andersen's consulting business had outgrown the accounting firm it produced, and its brand is still felt, Vorsatz said.
“Andersen Consulting was the Coca-Cola of professional services,” he said. “If you're over 40 in business, you know Andersen Consulting.”
Shaheen facilitated business development for new member firms at Andersen Global, with the goal of providing consulting services ranging from strategic advice and IT transformation to cyber security and sustainability. He said it would not compete with one of Accenture's core businesses as an outsourcing service provider.
“Accenture is a great firm, but we don't plan to replicate it,” he said.
The new Andersen Consulting will also differ from its predecessor from the 1990s in that it will not be linked to the auditing industry, where conflict of interest regulations prevent cross-selling to audited clients.
“Andersen today doesn't have that independence and we can be as aggressive as we need to be,” Shaheen said.
Until he left for dotcom venture Webvan, Shaheen led consulting firm Arthur Andersen's repeated efforts to win more independence from the accounting firm, in what became one of the professional services sector's biggest soap operas.
For most of the 1990s, Andersen Consulting and Arthur Andersen worked loosely as sister firms under an umbrella organization, but when the accounting industry grew a second consulting practice in direct competition, Shaheen filed for divorce.
Andersen Consulting was forced by an arbitrator to give up the name as part of a legal separation in late 2000. Accenture, which floated in the US the following year, is now the world's largest consulting firm by revenue.