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Big Four may refer to:
Accounting Firms
- The Big Four auditors, the four largest international public accountancy firms, Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Formerly the Big Five before the demise of Arthur Andersen following the Enron scandal.
Banks
- Name traditionally given to the four biggest banks in the United Kingdom as a whole. For many decades these were: Lloyds Bank (now Lloyds TSB); NatWest, (now part of Royal Bank of Scotland); Barclays Bank; and Midland Bank (now HSBC Bank plc). HBOS, which was formed by a merger between the Bank of Scotland and the former building society Halifax, is larger than Lloyds TSB by both assets and market capitalization, so the term is obsolete, but it is still sometimes used by the media
- Name given to the four biggest banks (which also issue banknotes) in Northern Ireland; these are: Ulster Bank (owned by Royal Bank of Scotland), Bank of Ireland, Northern Bank (owned by Danske Bank) and First Trust Bank (part of AIB UK)
- Name given to the four biggest banks in the Republic of Ireland; these are: AIB, Bank of Ireland, National Irish Bank (owned by Danske Bank) and Ulster Bank (owned by Royal Bank of Scotland)
- Name given to the four biggest banks in Scotland; these are: Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland, Clydesdale Bank and Lloyds TSB Scotland
- Name given to the four biggest banks in Australia; these are: the National Australia Bank, the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and ANZ
- Name given to the four large banks in the People's Republic of China; these are: the Bank of China, the China Construction Bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Agricultural Bank of China
Companies
- A nickname for a railroad in the United States of America officially called the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (later absorbed by the New York Central Railroad)
- The four major U.S. wireless providers: Cingular, Verizon, Sprint Nextel, and T-Mobile
- The Big Four was the collective name given to four railroad magnates in the western U.S.: Collis P. Huntington, Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker
- In 1902, meat packers Gustavus Swift, J. Ogden Armour, and Edward Morris, along with the investment banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb, and Company, to create the National Packing Company for the purpose of fixing prices, dividing up markets, and suppressing union efforts to organize industry workers. The group became known the "Meat Trust" and the "Big Four" of the meat packing industry, and developed such a monopoly that the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the venture to disband in 1905
- The four largest railway companies in the United Kingdom in the period 1923-1948 were known as the Big Four. These were the Great Western Railway, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, the London and North Eastern Railway and the Southern Railway. In 1948 these companies were nationalised to form British Railways
- The four Japanese motorcycle makers: Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha
- In the United Kingdom it refers to the big four supermarkets of Tesco, Asda, Sainsburys and Morrisons which had a combined market share of 74.3% in 2005
Music and Media
- Big Four record labels, the four major media giants which dominate the global music market: EMI, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group. These were known as the Big Five before the joint venture between Sony and BMG merged
- The four major U.S. television networks: ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox
- In the United Kingdom, the Big Four ITV companies in the period 1956 to 1968 were Associated-Rediffusion (later Rediffusion London), ATV, ABC and Granada Television
- The four most popular and arguably influential thrash metal bands of the 80's: Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax
- The four most prominent grunge bands that emerged from Seattle, Washington in the early 1990s: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden
- The four major hip hop artists and groups to emerge from the New York hip hop scene during the mid-1990s (The Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, The Notorious B.I.G., and Mobb Deep). Each of these artists played a instrumental role in what has been labeled by hip hop pundits as the East Coast hip hop renaissance
- The four nations allowed automatic entries to the Eurovision Song Contest, due to their financial contributions: France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom
- The four most popular albums by Pink Floyd: Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, and The Wall.
Places
- Big Four Mountain in Snohomish County, Washington, United States
- Big Four, West Virginia, United States
- Big Four Bridge (Louisville) in Louisville, Kentucky, United States
Sport
- Big four (sport), the four largest sports leagues in the North America: The National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League
- In 2005, the four golfers Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, and Phil Mickelson. However this is now generally accepted as a big five to include Retief Goosen.
- The starting pitchers for the Cleveland Indians from 1949 to 1954: Bob Feller, Early Wynn, Bob Lemon, and Mike Garcia
- In bowling, a 4-6-7-10 split
Others
- Big Four (Indian snakes), the four deadliest of India's many venomous snakes
- The four leaders of the most powerful nations who attended the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. They were: Woodrow Wilson (American President), David Lloyd George (British Prime Minister), Vittorio Orlando (Italian Premier), and Georges Clemenceau (French Premier). These four leaders were responsible for devising the Treaty of Versailles
- The "Big Four" outlaw motorcycle gangs
- Big Four pageants, Miss Universe, Miss World, Miss Earth and Miss International, which regularly receive the largest delegates from all over the world
- The four largest IRC networks: EFNet, IRCNet, Quakenet, Undernet (formerly Dalnet, EFnet, Quakenet and Undernet; Dalnet fell in size drastically just as Quakenet started to get very big) *
- The Big Four (novel), an Agatha Christie novel
- The four largest eikaiwa or English education organisations in Japan: Nova, AEON, GEOS & ECC
- The four biggest English-speaking countries in the world, United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia
- In medical records, the term "big four" refers collectively to History and Physical Examination, Consultation Report, Operative Report, and Discharge Summary
- The Big Four Universities of Canada referring to Queen's University, McGill University, University of Toronto, and University of Western Ontario. Additionally the four elite Ontario private schools Ridley College, St. Andrew's College, Upper Canada College, and Trinity College were referred to as the Little Big Four.
See also
"Big Four"