A source close to New York-based Deloitte told ComputerWire: Deloitte Consulting is going to remain under the ownership of DTT for the near future. There hasn’t been any mention of a sale, but it must be a consideration.

New York-based DTT had intended to sell Deloitte Consulting to its partners in spring 2003 through a management buy-out after which it would then rename itself Braxton. However the company is now unlikely to change its name now, with the U-turn being blamed on what it called external factors including the tight credit market and the uncertain state of the economy.

Deloitte Consulting faces ever mounting pressure to legally separate from DTT following the Andersen/Enron debacle last year, which underlined the conflicts of interest between consulting firms that also provide auditing services to the same clients. The company is now the only remaining player among the former Big Five not to have separated from its auditing parent, and it is likely to have faced a torrent of defecting clients over the past year after concerns about impartiality.

Deloitte Consulting ranks as the second largest pure IT consulting operation worldwide behind Accenture Ltd, with annual revenue in its most recent published year to May 31 2001 of $3.49bn from a workforce of 15,000 employees. However it now faces the same dilemma as former rival PwC Consulting, which saw clients defecting to other services firms as it pursued a path toward an IPO and name change to separate from parent PricewaterhouseCoopers. The speed of the defection proved too swift not to accept a rescue package from IBM Global Services, which bought the company last July for $3.5bn.

PwC Consulting reportedly spent $110m on a rebranding exercise prior to its takeover by IBM, which would have seen the company change its name to Monday, and Deloitte Consulting too has spent tens of millions of dollars on rebranding around the Braxton name for its separation from DTT.

The Andersen/Enron crisis has also sparked similar merger and acquisition activity among the former Big Five. Last May, KPMG Consulting Inc, now BearingPoint, began moves to acquire 23 Andersen Business Consulting operations from the beleaguered auditing giant embroiled in the affair. Through the various deals, it planned to take on an additional 7,000 staff with annual revenue of $1.4bn, including the $685m purchase of KCA, the German, Swiss and Austrian consulting operations, which it claimed were the crown jewel of the Andersen franchises.

Last month, IBM GS talked up its success rate of consulting project wins following the PwC Consulting acquisition, claiming that IBM Business Consulting Services, the division including PwC Consulting, had won back 70% of clients that had left PwC Consulting last year when it was still owned by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Potential interested parties in Deloitte Consulting could include companies such as Unisys Corp, and CGI Group, which are both keen to expand their IT services operations and have the funds to spend on acquisitions. However Accenture, which has seen its own consulting operation decline markedly in recent quarters, could prove the best fit for the company.

Source: Computerwire