Deloitte and Punongbayan & Araullo merges

The local unit of New York’s Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd will be merging with homegrown auditing and tax advisory firm Punongbayan & Araullo (P&A) to form a single company.In a statement, P&A and Navarro Amper & Co (NA&Co), the Philippine unit of Deloitte, said they have signed a memorandum of agreement to form Punongbayan Amper & Co.Both will serve their respective clients as separate companies until the merger officially concludes by 1 July, 2014.  The merged firm will be manned by a workforce of around 1,000 people and 34 partners and is expected to earn annual revenues of P1.2 billion.Punongbayan Amper & Co. will be led by P&A founder Ben Punongbayan as chairman. Greg Navarro, managing partner and chief executive of NA&Co, will become managing partner and CEO while P&A chairperson and CEO Marivic Españo will serve as deputy managing partner.“This merger with P&A creates tremendous opportunities. Together, we will have more resources and capabilities to serve our clients and provide a more attractive and exciting place to work for our people,” said Navarro.The merger means that P&A will be exiting from its partnership with US -based Grant Thornton International Ltd, where it is currently a member. Details on why they left Grant Thorton was not discussed.