Notre histoire 1981 – 1991
1981 – 1991 A DECADE OF EXPANSION
Dagmar Brösztl-Reinsch
“For me it was always important to have members in all the places where our clients were. And this was when we saw a lot of expansion and the need to grow further globally.”
Dagmar Brösztl-Reinsch
“When expanding further, the most important thing was to find quality and trusted firms. These have always been crucial values – introducing your client to another country, you want them to experience the same trusted and high quality services.”
A series of major mergers
A series of major mergers lead to the formation of KMG in 1979, AMSA (later Arthur Young Europe) in 1980 and KPMG in 1986. Further mergers over the course of the 1980s mean the ‘Big Eight’ become the ‘Big Six’.
Intensified market competition
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) amends the rules to permit advertising and soliciting clients, leading to intensified market competition.
Harmonisation of accounting
In Europe, directives in 1978, 1983 and 1984 lead to wide harmonisation of accounting practices within the European Community.
Opportunities to grow
Kreston’s founding firms continue to discuss the international brand name and opportunities to grow the association. In a letter to Rene Chenieux [of Groupe Fiduciaire Kreston], Mike Ross compares UK and international names and indicates Kreston’s position in the table of next 15 UK firms outside of the ‘big eight’.
Microsoft Word launches
Developed by Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie for Microsoft, it remains the world’s most popular word processing programme to this day.
Big Bang
The deregulation of the London Stock Exchange allows a range of measures including the abolition of fixed commission charges and computerised share dealing. The sudden changeover led to a dramatic increase in market activity and significant changes within the London financial markets.
Black Monday
A sudden stock market crash hits 23 major world markets, with worldwide losses estimated at US$1.71 trillion. Investors surveyed afterwards report a mindset of fear linked to “too much indebtedness”.
Dagmar Brösztl-Reinsch
“One event that was really important for me was when Germany reunited and the opening to the east. And I would say almost every medium-sized German firm went to East Germany and further on to eastern European countries.”
Birth of the World Wide Web
While working as an information technology engineer at CERN in Switzerland, Tim Berners-Lee implements a successful communication between a hypertext transfer protocol (http) client and server via the internet.