EY announced a global restructure that will rationalise its regional divisions, but EY Oceania’s leadership and structure will remain unchanged, reported The Australian Financial Review (AFR).
The restructuring involves merging 18 regional structures into ten super regions, and cutting three overarching geographic groupings.
This move is expected to lead to job cuts, particularly among staff reporting to the Asia-Pacific geographic grouping, according to AFR.
The restructuring follows KPMG’s earlier move to merge smaller national partnerships as large consulting firms navigate a slow market and growing doubts surrounding the value of their advisory
EY’s financial services division will lose its global independence and be integrated into the new regional structures.
Despite these changes, EY Oceania, including the Australian partnership, will not be merged and will continue under the leadership of chief executive David Larocca.
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By GlobalDataEY declined to comment on the restructuring plans.
The newly formed super regions will include ASEAN, Canada, Central Europe and Nordics, Greater China, India and Africa, Japan, Korea, Latin America and Israel, Middle East and North Africa, Oceania, UK & Ireland, US and Western Europe.
Leaders of each super region will join EY’s global executive, with the new structure expected to begin in the new financial year.
This restructure follows EY’s failed attempt to split its consulting and audit arms, which resulted in more than $1bn of debt due to the costs of the collapsed plan in April 2023.
The changes aim to simplify operations and increase partner profits by integrating the globally profitable financial services division into regional partnerships.
A global downturn in demand for advisory services has forced the big four firms to cut jobs and seek operational efficiencies.
In Oceania, EY plans to restructure its standalone legal practice, likely leading to further job cuts.
Oceania partners’ profits fell by 15% in 2024, with the partnership size decreasing from 748 to 721.
EY has consistently cut staff, including 100 redundancies in February 2025, following revelations that rival PwC used confidential government information to assist clients.
