MUMBAI: In what could just be the beginning of a poaching war among the big four accounting firms, Deloitte is in the process of wooing away 20 partners along with their teams, totalling some 300 people, from KPMG , people with the direct knowledge of the matter said.This would be the biggest such movement in the consultancy space in five years, industry experts said. "Final offers were made two days back, and about 20 partners have already put in their papers," a person with direct knowledge of the matter said. "Three more KPMG partners are in negotiations with Deloitte and they too may resign in the coming days," the person told ET. All the partners are set to join Deloitte’s advisory team, people in the know said.According to them, those who are set to join Deloitte from KPMG include Romal Shetty, chief operating officer (advisory), Jehil Thakkar, Viral Thakkar, Nitin Kini, Prashant Kaddi and Ashwin Ballal. "This is a big blow for KPMG as the firm’s maximum revenue comes from advisory services," a partner working in the firm said.The development is expected to help Deloitte challenge market leader EY in the advisory practice space, and may trigger a war for talent among the top four — EY, PwC , Deloitte and KPMG. Deloitte, which is currently the strongest player in the Indian auditing space, is aggressively focusing on advisory practice as the mandatory auditor rotation rule in expected to impact its auditing business Deloitte has about 55 partners in advisory. EY, which has 125 partners in advisory vertical, is also looking to increase the number of partners by 15 by the end of the current financial year."Currently, EY is the biggest player in advisory practice. The fight is now going to be between Deloitte and EY," an advisory partner with one of the big four said.ET has a list of 20 KPMG partners who have got offers from Deloitte, and three others who could get offers in next few days. Many of these executives confirmed the development to ET but requested not to quote them. A KPMG spokesperson, however, said, "This (partners, executives joining Deloitte) is market speculation and as a policy we are unable to offer any comments on market speculation." An email query sent to Deloitte did not elicit any response as of press time Thursday.According to people in the know, KPMG is negotiating with the executives and may make counter-offers to some of them.All the partners have got a substantial jump from their current salaries. The salary jump is based on the number of team members and business the partners can bring from KPMG to Deloitte, they said."Partners would be required to serve about nine months of notice period, however one partner has been asked to serve a 12 month notice period," a partner in a KPMG’s rival said. "It was more of a push factor than a pull factor," he added. For KPMG this is the third time in about one year that a chunk of partners have quit. Earlier some senior partners had quit the firm to join Dhruva, a tax advisory firm started by former deputy CEO at KPMG Dinesh Kanabar. Also, some partners in taxation practice had quit KPMG to join PwC.