Welp there goes at least one PwC partner’s plan to divorce his spouse to protect assets from Evergrande fallout. As covered by Bloomberg in June (and included in our 6.15.26 Monday Morning Accounting News Brief), partners who were on the clock during the Evergrande engagement are bracing for major financial pain as liquidators seek to take every penny they can from the people — and organization(s) — auditing the real estate developer prior to its collapse. Liquidators at Alvarez & Marsal have even dragged PwC International into the mess, seeking 38 billion yuan ($5.6 billion USD) from them and 57 billion yuan ($8.4 billion) total.
What Bloomberg wrote in their original story:
Several partners at PwC’s Hong Kong and mainland China affiliates say they are exploring strategies to safeguard personal assets, in case legal and regulatory challenges facing the firms ever spill over into any financial or legal burdens for themselves. One says he has even contemplated divorce as a means to shield wealth, while another is cutting education budgets for his children.
Yeah so that was a terrible idea. Talking about shielding wealth, I mean. Financial Times has some fresh scoop:
In a letter to individuals who were equity partners during the firm’s Evergrande audit from 2017 to 2020, the liquidators said that, while they expected “PwC will be able to meet in full any monetary judgment”, they warned that they would look to the partners “personally to recover any shortfall”.
The letter, which was sent on June 30 and seen by the FT, also warned partners against taking steps to “shield assets from execution of judgment, including by divorcing spouses or placing assets in the names of other family members” after reports of partners contemplating such steps.
Those Alvarez & Marsal folks sure don’t play.
