A. F. Ferguson & Co. Pakistan
Present
The Firm consists of 43 partners and has staff of over 1,700 and counting. The firm is currently headed by Syed Muhammad Shabbar Zaidi and is the oldest firm in Pakistan. A. F. Ferguson & Co. (a member firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers network) is among the largest firms of professional accountants in Pakistan, operating in three metropolitan cities viz. Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. The firm also has an office in Kabul, Afghanistan. The firm operates under international membership of PricewaterhouseCoopers and is also known internationally as PricewaterhouseCoopers Pakistan (PwC Pakistan).
Broadly, the firm offers professional services in the fields of Accounting, Audit and Assurance, Taxation, Transaction Advisory, Risk Advisory Services, SPA and HR Consultancy. Internally, the firm is organized along two separate service lines- Assurance and Business Advisory Services (ABAS), Tax and Legal Services (TLS) which are equally split into 8 'sections' Each service line has its own leader (partner)
The firm currently employs nearly 1600 people: partners, senior managers, managers, assistant managers, and professional trainees. Firm's clientele includes leading groups/ companies of Financial and Non-Financial sectors.
The head office of the firm is situated at State Life building no. 1-C, I.I. Chundrigar Road, Karachi, Pakistan.
History
The Pakistan firm of A. F. Ferguson & Co., came into existence when the old firm of the same name was split into two independent entities. The origins of the firm, however, go back to 1893.
Mr. A. F. Ferguson, a Chartered Accountant of Scotland, came to Bombay in 1889 as chief accountant in the merchant firm of Ritchie Stewart & Co., [later to become Forbes Forbes Campbell & Co. (Private) Limited]. In 1893 he started to practice and was the first British Chartered Accountant to do so in this part of the world. Mr. P. G. Irvine, previously an assistant became a partner in 1898 and the name of the firm was changed to 'Ferguson & Irvine'. In 1902 owing to the ill-health of Mr. Irvine this partnership was dissolved and the firm became 'A. F. Ferguson & Co.', with Messrs A. F. Ferguson and W. Turner Green as partners. The firm prospered in Bombay and in 1908 an office was opened in Karachi. Mr. A. F. Ferguson returned to the United Kingdom in 1912 and commenced practice in London.
The Karachi office was opened on March 20, 1908. The office was in a small room, part of the Latham & CO's office on Bunder Road (now M. A. Jinnah Road), near the Mereweather Tower.
The firm operated in the Persian Gulf between 1910 and 1924 and for some years a branch office was also maintained there. The Lahore office was opened in 1926 when the firm of Niessen Dignasse & Co., was acquired. Later, a small office was established in Rawalpindi, which at that time was known as a sub-branch of the Lahore Office.
In August 1947, Pakistan gained independence from British Raj. The Pakistan firm was formed on November 1, 1952 by a deed, signed and stamped at Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan, and took over the practice previously carried on by the Karachi and Lahore branches of the Indian firm whose head office was in Bombay. There was a complete severance from the old Indian firm which continued to practice in India under the same name.
The Rawalpindi branch was upgraded to an independent office in November 1990 and an office was also opened in Islamabad in late 1992. In 1993, the operations of the Rawalpindi office were transferred to the Islamabad office.
In 2006, the firm opened a branch in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Reference: http://www.pwc.com.pk/en/about-us/firm-history.jhtml