For years, the Big Four accounting firms dominated the audits of companies making their break into the public markets. Along came SPACs.
The buzzy blank-check companies that go public and then seek a target to acquire made up more than half of all initial public offerings in 2020. A regional audit firm and a small national firm performed the majority of their audits by far. That surge of new special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, was enough to nudge the Big Four firms out of the top IPO auditor spots for the first time ever.
By volume alone, Princeton, N.J.-headquartered ...