Once completed, Grant Thornton's merger with fellow mid-tier accountancy firm Robson Rhodes could put it on the brink of gatecrashing the Big 4 party, according to recent figures.
Hemscott's latest rankings show that the new firm will be on the verge of being placed in the top four
auditor rankings for total number of stock market clients, reports AccountancyAge.
The numbers for the second quarter of this year show that Grant Thornton and Robson Rhodes boast 284 clients between them.
This is less than 50 clients behind the last ranked Big 4 firm, Deloitte, which has 325 listed companies as clients.
Peter Wyman, head of professional affairs at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said: "If there is nobody growing and nobody shrinking then we should be concerned, but we have a well-functioning market where there is movement."
The Hemscott figures show that the Big 4 regularly change rankings over as little time as a quarter, with KPMG and PwC both having held the top spot in the second quarter.
Grant Thornton and Robson Rhodes announced their intention to merge in the beginning of May.
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