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Accounting News Roundup: California Needs a Few Good Tax Experts; Fed Still Trolling Banks; New Digs for KPMG Dallas | 03.26.13

Ed. note: in case you haven't gathered, the GC editorial team is meeting with TPTB this week conspiring to bring you guys the best GC we can. As such, we're on a bit of a light posting schedule through today but will return to business as usual soon enough.

Quicken Loans' billion-dollar gamble pays off [Green Bay Press Gazette]
This is working out swimmingly for everyone except those who work for KPMG and their families

New Derivative Guards Against Bitcoin’s Price Swings [WSJ Money Beat]
A start-up derivatives exchange is working on what it claims will be the first bitcoin swap, allowing financial institutions to bet on the value of the embattled virtual currency. Tera Group Inc, operator of the exchange, said it has drafted documentation for a 25-day swap transaction between a pair of U.S. financial firms. The swap works by allowing the holder, say a vendor who accepts bitcoin as a method of payment, to protect against a potential drop in the virtual currency’s value against the U.S. dollar. Under the swap–known as a “non-deliverable” forward because the contract is settled in cash without the need to deliver bitcoin–the parties agreed to pay each other in the future a certain amount based on the values of the two currencies. The parties to the swap agreed to use an average price taken from multiple bitcoin exchanges to determine how they’ll settle up.

We'll remember the happy times, say family of accountant whose body was found in Thames [Evening Standard]
The family of an accountant whose body was found in the Thames today said they were determined to remember 28 years of happiness rather than the three weeks he was missing. Marc Hutton, an accountant for a Piccadilly-based media firm, was last seen by flatmates at his home in Sefton Road, Putney, on February 28 at 11.30pm after saying he was going out for food.

No Accounting: The State's Tax Board Is Free of Tax Professionals [SF Weekly]
Don't try so hard, California.

Sold! Downtown Dallas’ KPMG Centre skyscraper purchased by Austin-based investors [Dallas Morning News]
Several of the largest businesses in the KPMG Centre – including lead tenant KPMG and Lockton Cos. – have signed leases in other buildings and are moving.

Ex-Sentinel CEO Eric Bloom Guilty In Fraud Case [CBS]
One of the largest fraud cases ever tried in Chicago has ended with Sentinel Management Group CEO Eric Bloom’s conviction on all 19 counts. Bloom, 49, of Northbrook, is all but certain to face a lengthy prison term after jurors took just three hours at the end of his month long trial to convict him, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting. Sentinel — founded 28 years earlier by Bloom’s father — boasted for years that it had never lost a dime of its customers’ money but lost $500 million when it collapsed in 2007 under the weight of Bloom’s risky financial bets.

U.S. banks brace for second Fed health check in a week [Reuters]
U.S. banks will tell shareholders on Wednesday how much they plan to pay out after the U.S. Federal Reserve unveils whether they can afford the cost and still be robust enough to weather the next crisis. It is part of a two-step annual regulatory check-up of the health of the largest U.S. banks. Last week, the Fed said that all but one of 30 banks had passed a model run of a simulated crisis similar to 2007-09 credit meltdown.

Secret Service Agents Sent Home From Amsterdam For Partying Too Hard [Gawker]
These things happen.