SyCip Gorres Velayo & Co. (SGV & Co.) is the Philippines' largest multidisciplinary professional services firm with eight offices across the country.[1][2] As of 2007, the company has employed over 1,800 professionals from various disciplines, including CPAs, lawyers, economists, HR experts, engineers, statisticians, financial analysts, and other business and technical experts.
Since 1996, it has been the only ISO 9002-certified professional services firm in the Philippines. SGV & Co. became an affiliate of Ernst & Young International on June 6, 2002.
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SyCip, Gorres, Velayo, and Company was founded by a Chinese-Filipino businessman Washington SyCip. It began as a one-man operation when it first opened in Manila to provide services to Philippine businesses rising from the ruins of World War II.[3] SyCip acted as accountant, messenger, and janitor all at the same time. Alfredo M. Velayo, a boyhood friend with whom Wash shared his dreams, and Vicente O. Jose, an accountant with copious experience in tax work, were taken in as partners in 1947. The new partnership gave birth to SyCip, Velayo, Jose & Co.
In 1948, the firm embarked on its first overseas engagement. The firm pioneered the Filipinization of the accounting profession. The first step taken to achieve this end was to work out a merger with Henry Hunter Bayne & Co. (HHB), a firm which started its practice in the country in 1906.
In 1953, Thomas Farnell, a senior partner of HHB, decided to return to his homeland and sell his practice to two Filipino accountants – Arsenio Reyes and Ramon J. Gorres. After a series of negotiations between SyCip and the two gentlemen, the firms merged to form the largest accounting firm in the Philippines. From this relationship, SyCip, Gorres, Velayo & Co., the firm’s current name, was derived.
In 1958, SGV assumed the practice of British firm Fleming & Williamson, which was rated the second largest accounting firm in the Philippines. The firm expanded further by establishing offices in Bacolod and Davao cities. Over the years, the firm have had correspondent relations with some of the leading firms in the West, among them Arthur Andersen & Co., Ernst & Ernst, Haskins & Sells, and Arthur Young. It has provided institutional development projects in more than 30 countries with funding assistance from international institutions such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.
In 1985, SGV & Co. became a member firm of Arthur Andersen & Co., S.C., one of the largest professional service organizations in the world. A year later, the firm opened its Manila Offshore Systems Development Center, with assistance from Andersen Consulting, and has provided computer software services to foreign clients through Andersen Consulting's global marketing network and resources.
SGV & Co. became a member practice of Ernst & Young on September 1, 2002 and the firm currently has eight branches across the Philippines, a main office in Makati.
SGV & Co. offers a variety of services for its different clients. These include: