Author: Caleb Newquist

Founding editor, Going Concern.

Are the Big 4 Driving Away Small Clients?

Ignore.jpgAccountancy Age reports today that smaller firms in the UK are cleaning up at the expense of the Big 4, specifically audit clients. The Four Horsemen are claiming cost pressure but small firms see it a little differently.
More, after the jump

Melissa Bowers, partner with Macclesfield-based firm Harts LLP, points to the Big Four’s practice of using senior partners to ‘seal the deal’ while leaving junior employees to do the grunt work, which has alienated smaller clients. This practice, combined with cost pressure, has driven audit clients into the arms of local firms. She has won work from clients who employed the same auditor for more than a generation…’It is possibly smaller work for them and they are possibly not giving them the same priority and attention.’

There’s no question that the cost pressure is an issue but what small clients really want, like a fat kid wants cookies, is some love from the partner. They’re not interested in a barely sober first year associate doing testwork. Clients want the partner to show up with the corporate card in hand ready to charm the pants off of them.
The other consideration is that clients just don’t care if they’ve got a big name on their audit:

Michael Good, partner at Oxford-based firm Critchleys, said that he believed smaller clients are no longer willing to fork out money for a big brand name firm. ‘They are asking themselves “do we need to pay the premium?” and “what are we getting for the premium?” and they are saying “actually not a lot”,’ he said.
‘Up to £20,000 for a big firm is not a big audit.’

We’d assume that here in the States, the sitch is no different. Small clients want to save money and they want to be someone special not just another contract that a partner has to take the rubber stamp to for the sake of his practice.
Discuss in the comments the trend here in the States. For you Big 4 types, are your smaller clients jumping ship because you’re treating them like the red-headed stepchild? Small firm bean counters are you picking up these clients? Feel free to get ugly about it, since most of you checked out on Monday, it will probably be a slow day.
Smaller firms clean up as recession sees audit clients shun the Big Four [Accountancy Age]

Preliminary Analytics | 09.03.09

tim-geithner.jpg• Treasury Retreats From Standoff With TARP Watchdog – “Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, a position also known as Sigtarp, declared victory Wednesday in his effort to clarify that he doesn’t answer to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.” [WSJ]
• Oracle Faces In-Depth EU Probe Over Sun Purchase – Larry Ellison will not stand this aggression. [Bloomberg]
• Will AIG Rein In Its Brash CEO? – “Mr. Benmosche said New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo ‘doesn’t deserve to be in government’ and that Mr. Benmosche would leave dealing with ‘all those crazies down in Washington’ to the company’s chairman, according to an account by Bloomberg News that was confirmed by Mr. Benmosche.” For the sake of the rest of us, let the man say his piece. [WSJ]
• Stanford Has Surgery; Receiver Defends $27 Million Fee – “Jailed fraud defendant R. Allen Stanford had surgery for an aneurysm in his leg Wednesday morning and was back in a Conroe-area prison before noon.” Recovery time for a stud such as Stan is not nearly as long for you mortals. Meanwhile, the receiver in the case is telling the SEC to BTFO. [Houston Chronicle]
• Stanford’s Bellagio debt, redux – Stan’s attorney suggests that if the Bellagio wants its money it should go after the aforementioned receiver, Ralph Janvey. Old school style of course, ‘Maybe the Bellagio should revert to the time-honored method of Vegas debt collection and send someone to make the receiver an offer he can’t refuse, or just break his legs,’ or may we suggest a hammer? [FT Alphaville]

Review Comments | 09.02.09

reservoir-dogs-mexican-standoff.jpg• Google’s Gmail knocked offline for ‘majority’ of users – Which was the cause of all the Tarantino-esque stand offs yesterday. [NYDN]
• Economy Sheds 298,000 Private-Sector Jobs, ADP Says – Unfortunately, some of you are in that number. [WSJ]
• Geithner Says Too Early to Start Withdrawing Stimulus Measures – Just in case you were worried. [Bloomberg]
• Goodell: NFL Teams Could Face TV Blackouts – For some of you, this is worse than Gmail going down. [NPR]
• The Great Recession – September 19th. NYC. Check it out. [Blackout Film Festival]

PCAOB Appears to Be Taking After Big Brother

TOLD YOU.jpgThe SEC has been setting a bad example for everyone. Now the Commission’s sloth-like urgency to appoint a chief accountant seems to have led the PCAOB to think that finding new board members really isn’t a big deal.
Chuck Niemeier announced that he will be leaving his position as a board member of the P very soon, even though his term ended almost a year ago. The PCAOB’s board members are allowed to stay on the board after their terms have ended until a replacement is found.
We suppose that you could give the P credit for having the foresight to write this rule in, as it’s pretty obv that no one really wants this job. Doesn’t make much difference anyway, as it’s not really clear just what the hell they’re doing over there, except making auditors’ lives more difficult and possibly ignoring independence violations.
IFRS Critic to Leave Accounting Firm Regulator [CFO]

Depantsing Day for the SEC

cox.jpgIn the biggest shocker of the day, the inspector general of the SEC reports that the Commission never undertook a ‘thorough and competent’ investigation into Bernie Madoff’s operations.
This seems to be the official “our bad” statement by the SEC, although Chris Cox didn’t waste any time throwing worker bees under the bus, “Days after the conman’s arrest, the SEC’s then-chairman, Christopher Cox, faulted the agency’s staff for failing to act on ‘credible and specific allegations’ about the operation for at least a decade.”
More, after the jump


Harry Markopolos was soiling himself the whole time and no one bothered to listen probably because you called country club rules when you took the big chair, C-squared. Call us Monday morning QB but if some guy called us up with dirty undies screaming about the biggest fraud in history, we’re pretty sure we’d take him seriously.
Anyhoo, it’s all water near a bridge now. Schape and Co. are kicking ass and taking their sweet time naming key positions, so we’re sure that everything will be hunky-dory from here on out.
SEC Never Took ‘Competent’ Look at Madoff’s Firm, Report Finds [Bloomberg]
UPDATE: Check out more of the SEC sucking over at our sister site, Dealbreaker.

Two Obscure Firms Get Together to Form a Slightly Larger Obscure Firm

merge.jpgCall us snobs for being ignorant about regional firms but until our New Firm Name Challenge, we’d never heard of J.H. Cohn and we’ve definitely never heard of Charles Brucia.
Regardless, the two firms are copulating to form a new firm but there won’t be a new name, which is pretty boring. According to Web CPA, “The firm will operate as Charles Brucia & Co., a division of J.H. Cohn.” Vomit.
This current get together follows JHC’s mergers with Frederic Kantor last summer and Good Swartz Brown & Berns last spring.
So at this pace of mergers, we’re predicting JHC will start throwing around “Global 6 Accounting Organization” somewhere around the 24th and one half Century.
J.H. Cohn Combines with Charles Brucia [Web CPA]

Religious Freedom Hanging By a Thread at the IRS?

kirpan.gifOkay maybe that’s a stretch but we’re guessing, what with all the rebellious employees, that the IRS is a tough place to work. Because of this high stress environment, normally rational people may jump to conclusions about otherwise harmless religious symbols.
A judge recently dismissed most of the legal claims of a former IRS revenue agent that wore a kirpan to work.
Continued, after the jump


Web CPA:

The revenue agent, Kawaljeet Kaur Tagore, sued the IRS after she was fired in July 2006 for wearing a “kirpan” to the IRS office in Houston…The blunt knife is traditionally worn in a curved sheath and is supposed to act as a reminder of a Sikh’s duty to protect the weak and promote justice for all. Tagore’s supervisor objected to the dagger, even though she claimed it never set off the metal detector in her building, and she was told to work from home.

How can you not get behind protecting the weak and justice for all? Still, Tagore was fired after refusing to wear a knife with a shorter, 2.5 inch, blade and returning with the 3 inch knife even though, as the original story reports, she had sharper items in her office, including her scissors.
Tagore filed suit earlier this year:

claiming that the government’s conduct violated both the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The defendants included the IRS, the Treasury Department, the Department of Homeland Security, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and several of Tagore’s supervisors.

Bad news is that the judge threw out the some of the Title VII claims but good news is that the one against T. Geith still remains. We’ll continue to follow this story if new developments happen to drop on another painfully slow news day.
IRS Dagger Carrier’s Claims Partly Dismissed [Web CPA Debits & Credits]

Where are Deloitte’s Revenue Results?

small salzberg.jpgAccountancy Age reports that P. Dubs still retains the most FTSE 100 clients in the UK while KPMG retains the largest amount of clients overall.
BFD, right? Stateside it’s all about the scratch. This begs the question of why the hell we haven’t seen any revenue results out of Deloitte yet. KPMG is too far out and P. Dubs and E&Y will be reporting next month.
But the Big Four Blog points out that Dr. Phil and Co. reported revenue in July last year but here we are approaching Labor Day (or for some, just the weekend) and not a peep.
We’ve contacted Deloitte about this and will update you with their response just as soon as we hear back. In the meantime, feel free to wildly speculate about the delay in the comments and what the fiscal year ’09 number will be. Last year global revenue was $27.4B so we’ll put over/under at $28.6B. Takers?

Firms Sponsoring Golfers – An Analysis

Accounting firms don’t do much advertising. It’s got something to do with ethics and since the CPA exam is ancient history for some we can’t talk specifics.
Firms do like to sponsor stuff related to golf. Tournaments, players, etc. One recipient of accounting firm cash has been widely followed here but now we recently discovered another firm sponsoree that, we feel, may rouse as loyal of a following as Phil.
natalie.jpgThis is Natalie Gulbis who is sponsored by RSM McGladrey.
Natalie works with RSM in partnering with the Special Olympics Golf Program and will be a contributor to RSM’s new golf blog.
We’re not really into golf so we can’t really debate who has a better game or who garners better exposure for their sponsor so, after the jump, we’ve presented a more superficial analysis:


phil-mickelson.jpgnatatlie 2.jpg
We admit that we know nothing about promotion or advertising but if you’ve got opinions on which firm seems to have found the better golfer to sponsor, discuss in the comments.

Preliminary Analytics | 09.02.09

23otb.jpg• OTB Is in Financial Trouble, but It’s Ready to Roll – Sometimes, time-honored traditions such as OTB are allowed certain concessions. [NYT]
• Madoff Details, and Property, on Tap – “[Inspector General David] Kotz turned over the report to SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro late Monday, and it is likely to be released within a week after the SEC’s five commissioners review it.” Probably no details on girth, etc. [WSJ]
• Disney Deal Could Spark Imaginitive M&A Ideas “When merger momentum really gets going, companies splash out for takeovers that make little sense to anyone except the investment bankers involved.” [DealBook]
• Stanford Back in Jail After Medical Tests – An aneurysm can’t keep Stan out of jail. DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS. [DealBook]

Review Comments | 09.01.09

michigan.jpg• College Football Coach Follows Lead of Ponzi Kings – Go Blue. [DB]
• Canadian Deloitte Partner Fined $235k for ‘Shoddy Accounting’ [JDA]
• Mormons Become Victims in $50 Million Scam to Sell Gold Bullion – Mitt Romney was NOT involved. [Bloomberg]
• Wells Fargo Expects to Repay TARP Soon Without New Share Sale – We still haven’t seen a dividend check [Bloomberg]
• Buffett Helped AIG, XL – at a Price – “Both insurers signed so-called cut-through endorsements with a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to offer some policy holders a guarantee that if the insurers couldn’t pay claims, Berkshire Hathaway would.” The man is nothing if he’s not good with money. [WSJ]