Partners in the Irish KPMG accountancy practice should do well out of the flotation of their management consultancy business on the US market. Some of the senior partners are likely to be paper millionaires, though with a six-month lock-in they will have to wait to see how the market rates the operation over time.

The flotation is the latest move in a series of changes throughout the Big Five practices worldwide. Traditional partnerships are restructuring to retain some exposure to profits from lucrative consultancy business, while remaining within the strict Securities and Exchange Commission guidelines on the independence of the audit.

Of the Big Five, only Deloitte & Touche has decided to retain its audit/accounting and management consulting operations under the partnership umbrella.

Partners at Accenture - the former Andersen Consulting, which has been separated from Arthur Andersen - will be watching the stock market performance of KCI (KPMG Consulting Inc) closely. Accenture is seen by analysts as a likely candidate for a market flotation in the not-too-distant future.

But the partners in Arthur Andersen, who got no slice of the consulting value when the units were split, will only be able to look on in envy. Since the split, the consultancy partners own all of the equity of the business, so they would be the beneficiaries of a flotation.

The split followed an acrimonious battle between the partners in the two separate strategic business units - the audit/accountancy and the management consultancy - which was only resolved at arbitration in Paris last August.