Accenture's divorce from Arthur Andersen kept it clear of the Enron wreck
In 2000 Andersen Consulting paid 1.2 billion dollars to walk away from its parent accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, and renamed itself with a deliberately meaningless word. Within two years Arthur Andersen was prosecuted over the Enron scandal, while the consultancy it had left, now called Accenture, carried on untouched.
The firm's roots lie in a consulting division Arthur Andersen set up in the early 1950s. One of its first big jobs was a feasibility study for General Electric at Appliance Park in Louisville, Kentucky, and that study persuaded GE to buy a UNIVAC I with a printer, believed to be the earliest business use of a computer anywhere in America.
By 1989 the accountants and the consultants had become separate units under a Swiss coordinating body, with an awkward rule: whichever side earned more paid the other up to 15 percent of its profits. The consultants were usually the ones paying, even as Arthur Andersen launched its own rival consulting line. Tensions built through the 1990s until an arbitration in 2000 cut the ties, at the price of that 1.2 billion dollar settlement.
A new name was needed quickly. Kim Petersen, a Danish employee in the Oslo office, suggested Accenture, shorthand for accent on the future, partly because a word with no meaning could not offend anyone in any language. It took effect on 1 January 2001, and that July the company floated on the New York Stock Exchange at 14.50 dollars a share. In June 2002 Arthur Andersen was prosecuted for obstructing justice over Enron, a case the old consultancy escaped because of the split.
Its corporate address has also drawn attention. Accenture incorporated in Bermuda in 2001, and critics called that a tax-avoidance move, though congressional auditors noted it had previously been a network of partnerships run through a Swiss entity rather than an American company. In 2009 it moved its incorporation to Ireland, and it is now based in Dublin. Since 2013 it has bought more than 200 companies, and as of 2025 it reported around 779,000 employees.
Source: Accenture
