Kralendijk- Just as is the case with PwC offices in Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, the former PwC Office in Bonaire is now a Grant Thornton office. The change follows on the decision of the owners of the local accountant organization in the Dutch Caribbean to drop the affiliation to PriceWaterhouseCoopers and continue their business using the name of accounting firm Grant Thornton.

The origin of the firm dates back to 1904, when Thornton & Thornton was formed in Oxford, UK. Twenty years later and on the other side of the Atlantic, 26-year-old senior accountant Alexander Richardson Grant established Alexander Grant & Co in Chicago, US.

The organization took a first step towards becoming a global organization in 1979 when the UK and the US firms set up a new international organization. Many of the original member firms remain part of the global organization, including India, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Singapore.

Seven years later in 1986, the US and UK firms each changed their names to Grant Thornton and in 1997, the first International Business Centre opened to manage our cross-border activity.

Although Grant Thornton is a new name in the Dutch Caribbean, the firm already had a relatively big presence throughout the Caribbean with presence in no less than 13 Caribbean countries.

According to Grant Thornton, the Dutch Caribbean is a strategically important market, with significant trade flows into the United States as well as strong business and cultural connections with the Netherlands, and, therefore, the world’s biggest consumer market in Europe. The former PwC firm will be the largest Grant Thornton firm in the Caribbean.

The organization in the Dutch Caribbean will be led by Steve Vanenburg, supported by a further four partners and 160 staff across four offices. The firm a full suite of services, ranging from tax and assurance to bookkeeping, payroll and advisory.