Thanks. We assume he has a subscription.
Toupee Test: From Hair Hat to Good Match [WSJ]
Author: Caleb Newquist
Founding editor, Going Concern.
Raid at E&Y Hong Kong Was Probably Really Boring
We don’t know what to make of the raid at the E&Y offices in Hong Kong that occurred yesterday. We’d like to think that it was something out of 24 where Jack Bauer was “forced” into an impossible situation where he had to shoot a sheisty auditor in the leg to find out where the “certain documents” were.
Alas, it sounds as though it was considerably less dramatic, falling way short of anything worthy of the Absurd-o-meter.
The HK Fuzz probably even talked it over before going to the E&Y digs and said, “We’re going where? Accountants? We don’t even need our guns for this one. Let’s just take coffee and bagels and they’ll probably do whatever we ask.”
We’re probably not far off as E&Y was sure to reiterate their intent to ‘engage with and further investigations into the Akai matter’. Bor-ing.
Not that we were expecting much but it would have been nice that if just once we’d hear about accountants stonewalling some authority figures. Instead, the Head of E&Y China is stepping down, which is hardly the same as a vast conspiracy that may or may not involve the President of the United States. Sigh. There’ll be a next time soon enough.
Hong Kong Police Raid Ernst & Young [WSJ]
HK police raid E&Y offices over documents [FT]
Earlier: EY Doesn’t Want to Be Outdone By Anyone So They Went to Hong Kong for a Scandal
KPMG Layoffs Part II Follow-up
It’s been fairly quiet since this past Tuesday’s layoffs but it sounds like lots of cuts occurred in national support services in Montvale, NJ. We also received a tip that the Richmond office let go a few professionals from their Internal Audit Risk & Compliance team which adds to the advisory cuts that were reported last week.
We also got more details on the Chicago office’s layoffs of tax professionals:
In addition to the 5 from ICS there were at least these:
• 4 in Fed Tax (Consumer Markets) – 1 manager, 2 seniors, 1 associate
• 1 in SALT – manager
• 1 in EVS – senior manager
• 3 in Fed Tax (Real Estate) – 1 managing director, 2 seniors
There were lots of rumors of it continuing this week, so continue to keep us updated. The bright side is today is New Year’s Day in the land of Klynveld.
Accounting Today’s List of Top 100 People Is Kinda Predictable
It’s nice that the folks over at AT put a list together so we’ve got something to talk about but it’s a fairly predictable list. The inclusions that we did like were Paul Caron over at TaxProf Blog and Bernie Madoff but otherwise it’s not too exciting.
There are a fair amount of politicians (including BO and T. Geith) and bureaucrats on the list which just indicates the slow, antagonizing descent financial accounting rules are making into direct government oversight. Barney Frank on the list is no surprise, we’re just thankful that Maxine Waters didn’t sneak on there because we would have stormed the AT offices with torches.
Pols aren’t nearly as surprising from a tax policy perspective but still, seeing Charlie Rangel on the list is dubious since he can’t even track how many rent-controlled apartments he has.
More, after the jump
The Big 4 are represented by:
• KPMG – Tim Flynn and John Veihmeyer
• PwC – Dennis Nally and Robert Moritz
• E&Y – Jim “I heart global accounting standards” Turley.
• Deloitte – Jim Quigley and Dr. Phil Salzberg
Eddie Nusbaum also made the list for GT but sadly, he doesn’t have a rose in his teeth. The token “large but not TOO large” picks are the McGladrey & Pullen Managing Partner and Clifton Gunderson CEO.
If you’ve got some time to waste today, go download the digital edition and approve of or call bullshit on whoever you see fit.
Problem of the Day: Tattle Tale Emails
No doubt your firm asks you do things that inevitably find their way to the back burner, that you forget about, or just plain don’t want to do. Mandatory ethics training, “crucial” CPE courses, office-wide pep rallies, etc.
By the time you’ve received the tenth email reminding you of the “mandatory ethics training that will ensure that you remain in compliance with firm policy and demonstrate [insert your firm’s name here] commitment to ethics” your urge to say “TO HELL WITH IT” has easily overtaken any intent you had on completing the training in the first place.
More, after the jump
Your aloof attitude, as you’re all acutely aware, is NOT APPRECIATED. Because of your lack of commitment, most firms find it totally necessary to email anyone that you’re remotely connected to, including the partner in charge of your firm/office informing them of your slacker attitude.
You know the type. Your name, next to something to the effect of “not in compliance/attendance” being sent around to inform everyone that your commitment to your firm is clearly in question. Someone obviously surmised that this was the best motivation for you to get your shit together if you want to remain a part of this awesome place to work.
Often times, you’re not even made aware of your non-compliance and one of your goody two-shoes friends sends you an email, “You know you’re in trouble for not going to the town hall meeting, don’t you?”
Just before you consider doing what EVERYONE is expecting you to do (read: freak the f*ck out), you calm everyone down by saying, “Yeah, my bad.” And hopefully it hasn’t gotten to the point where you’re meeting with a very gruff and passive-aggressive partner that drones on about the importance of the CPE/meeting/training in question, because that’s just awkward.
Discuss the stonewalling, and then your firm’s preferred method of tattling on the riff-raff in the comments.
KPMG…Raises…Still…No…Word…
So it’s October 1st, and several Klynveldians have got ants in their pants. Here’s one source that echoes many:
I work in the SE and they haven’t mentioned raises at all and I was promoted to senior in july. We usually have some sort of idea or at least have our meeting scheduled. However nothing…
We touched on this two weeks ago and other than some sit-downs in the Mid-Atlantic, it’s all been speculation about what the Radio Station will actually be doing re: merit increases.
The debate was polarizing, with some claiming the incommunicado was typical and others saying something should have been communicated by now.
Promotees, non-promotees, whatever your sitch, discuss your anxiety (and continue speculating) in the comments. Email us if your region gets word, for better, for worse.
UPDATE, 12:36 pm: Email has been sent to those in the Mid-Atlantic that discussions with ‘designated partners’ will be had next week.
BDO May Be Taking a Crack at This ‘Global 6’ Thing
BDO is done messing around. Having watched Grant Thornton fail miserably at trying to get the bean counter universe to embrace “Global 6 Accounting Organization”, the firm, with the help of global CEO Jeremy Newman’s blog, are stepping it up a notch.
According to Newman’s post for today and Accountancy Age, all BDO firms are now operating under the name ‘BDO’ rather than, for example, ‘BDO Seidman’ for the U.S. firm and ‘BDO Stoy Howard’ in the UK.
The reason for the name change, according to the one managing partner:
Continued, after the jump
Simon Michaels, managing partner at BDO, said the move was not just about the “look and feel” of the brand but was aimed at “significantly increasing our market share”. If we present ourselves as a unified global network… then the clients experience the high level of service and that helps to drive the reputation,” he said.
See? It’s working already. A ‘managing partner at BDO’ means this guy could be anywhere. It’s a global firm, in case you’ve forgotten. And ‘increasing our market share’? Dude may not be saying ‘Global 6 Accounting Organization’ but that’s all we’re hearing.
Newman chimes in on his blog:
At the same time we will be updating the ‘look’ of our visual identity – which will hopefully be evident from this website. Nothing too dramatic – but building on the BDO heritage whilst signalling a more modern approach.
Call us unappreciative of the subtle changes for this new ‘look’ but it seems the same to us. Our speculation is that the new ‘BDO’ is striving for continuity amongst all its offices in order to saturate the market to the point that ‘Global 6 Accounting Organization’ bulldozes its way into the vernacular.
Discuss BDO’s strategy or perhaps your thoughts on ‘Global 6’ in general, in the comments.
BDO rebrand creates unified global identity [Accountancy Age]
Preliminary Analytics | 10.01.09
• Bank of America Chief Resigns Under Fire – “One sign to company insiders that something was up: Mr. Lewis returned to work after Labor Day in a full beard, which no one at the bank had ever seen before. He shaved it off after one day.” We’re picturing something along the lines of ZZ Top. [WSJ]
• Cowboys Under 60-Yard-Long HDTV Signaling Player-Pay Showdown – “The stadium epitomizes the NFL’s costly building spree during the past 15 years. Many owners used cheap credit to build and renovate 24 of the league’s 31 venues, more than quadrupling debt held by teams and the league to about $9 billion this year from 1996.” On a side note, guess where the NFL CFO used to work? [Bloomberg]
• Crocs laces up $30M in credit – Unfortunately, Crocs seems to have survived its near death experience. [Denver Business Journal]
• Comcast-GE Talks Heighten Intrigue Over Fate of NBCU – Your cable company part owner of Conan, The Office? That feels icky. [WSJ]
• 47% Will Pay $0 Income Tax in 2009 – Probably none of you. [TaxProf Blog]
Review Comments | 09.30.09
• Fired! It had to happen – Accountants giving you a hard time about your software? Fire ’em. [AccMan]
• GM to Wind Down Saturn Brand, Dealerships on Penske Decision – “GM described the collapse as ‘disappointing.’ People familiar with the situation said the closing of the sale was due to be announced as soon as Thursday, and Penske had already distributed new franchise agreements to dealers.” [WSJ]
• US pay czar Feinberg expecting heat for rulings – Let’s not jump to conclusions, bank CEOs might be totally on board for someone telling them what they get to earn. [Reuters]
• DOJ Asks Court to Bar CPA from Preparing Returns – DOJ honing in on IRS turf? [Web CPA]
Caption Contest Poll: E&Y at the Emmys
All right, we’ve waited long enough. We had to do a little paraphrasing due to character limits but you get the gist. You’ve got until 3 pm EDT on Friday to vote. Get it done, after the jump.
(UPDATE) Deloitte Still Stalling on Global Revenue Numbers
The U.S. numbers are out, $10.7 billion, according to Deloitte’s U.S. website but the global page still only has the fiscal year ’08 numbers. The U.S. numbers are essentially flat from fiscal year ’08 revenue of approximately $11 billion.
We don’t really know what the problem is but we understand that math is hard sometimes so we’ll just wait patiently until the global numbers come out. God knows we’d have pandemonium if Deloitte was a SEC registrant filing the 10-K but hey, that’s one big advantage to a private company: We’ll report our revenue when we’re damn good and ready so you can all piss off.
Fine. We can wait.
In the meantime, some interesting data that is presented on the U.S. page so far includes:
• “Staff” dropping 1,490 while “Partners” went up 14 from FY ’08 to FY ’09
• Two offices were either closed or consolidated as the number went from 92 to 90
• Total number of CPA’s went up over 3200 from approximately 8,700 to just under 8,900
So at first glance, it appears that Big D had a similar ho-hum year to E&Y but we’ll withhold final judgment until the global numbers come out. Feel free to speculate on the delay of the global numbers or if you dare to eat donuts that look like a Smurf/Braveheart reenactment occurred on them.
Layoff Watch: PwC
Editor’s note: Francine McKenna is a regular contributor for Going Concern
We’ve gotten reports of recent layoffs of over 100 professionals in the Advisory practice and 40 in U.S. IT. The IT professionals were out of the Tampa office, including some that were Lotus Notes developers. Right. We didn’t know anyone still used Lotus Notes either.
Sources indicate that this was more “forced ranking” layoffs as many were high performers that were dismissed because of suddenly ‘less than expected’ ratings. We’ve covered PwC’s less than clear approach in the past.
PwC has not immediately responded to our requests for comment.
We reached out to Francine McKenna, of Re: The Auditors and she provided this comment:
“PwC is the biggest abuser of the “forced ranking” approach, artificially downgrading folks to make them feel lousy, alone, and uncomfortable discussing or otherwise reacting to getting let go. They refuse to admit they are overstaffed because they would view it as a direct indication of their inability to manage effectively (notice I said manage, not lead).”
If you have more details on these layoffs, send us an email to our tips address and discuss in the comments.