Another top 50 accounting firm based in New York City has laid off employees during the COVID-19 crisis.
We got a tip on April 3 that there was a number of staff layoffs at Berdon LLP and the third-party outsourcing group based in India had also been let go. But our source didn’t know the extent of the staff layoffs.
Today our source told us there was a firm-wide call this morning that somewhat addressed last week’s layoffs. We learned that 15 people lost their jobs; however, departments and service lines were not specified. Rumor has it that senior 1s may have gotten the brunt of the layoffs.
Our source also told us the firm deferred April partner distributions.
Regarding the third-party outsourcing group being let go, our source said:
Seems there’s several groups, some do tax and some do audit and some do word processing, and the explanation that was provided was technical/IT/security availability in the midst of India being closed down.
Berdon, which is best known around these parts for being sued by Rihanna in 2012 in what Caleb once ranked as the best celebrity-accountant beef (Berdon and Rihanna settled out of court in 2014), had 453 employees as of 2019, according to Vault.com. Our source told us that the majority of staff work in audit, with tax a distance second.
Friedman, which ranked one spot behind Berdon at No. 42 in INSIDE Public Accounting’s 2019 ranking of the top 100 accounting firms in the U.S., laid off 52 people on March 26.
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