As if you didn’t need another excuse to go on a three day bender, we received a tip that audit professionals will be getting laid off at the Dallas Radio Station next Tuesday, the 18th. Tax professionals will get their turn in September, most likely after the filing deadline.
Word is that no one level is safe as the cuts will be made at all levels including partners.
KPMG did not immediately respond to our request for declined to comment.
If you’ve got more information on the sitch or you’ve heard similar rumors for other offices, drop us a line at tips@goingconcern.com.
Author: Caleb Newquist
Founding editor, Going Concern.
E&Y SoCal Intern Offers: Don’t Spend it All in One Place
It may still be a little early for the citizens of Arnie, especially if you’ve got the Friday morning cocktail flu, but whatevs. We got word that E&Y audit interns have gotten their offers nationwide and Whale’s Vagina San Diego and L.A. are both getting $50k, no bonus. If you got a Masters, you’re getting $52k, no bonus (seems worth it now, eh?). No word on tax or advisory, so if you know these, fill us in.
Last year’s lucky little Ernies got a bonus so at the very least, that makes for a smidge of animosity. For all the love we’ve been giving Ern we haven’t got a lot of specifics on the actual details. Discuss in the comments or drop us the numbers at tips@goingconcern.com
Phil Mickelson 9 Box Update
Fill had a less than ideal first round, shooting +2, which is seven shots behind the leader. On the one hand, he’s well on his way to not winning the tournament. On the other, he’s well on his way to not finishing second.
Check our initial rating if you need to get caught up.
So after not considering a hell of a lot, we’ve come up with Fill’s new ranking:
Check out where the Radio Station billboard falls, after the jump
As you can see, Fill has dropped from the relative safety of SP5 to the less than acceptable position in NI7. He teed off at 9:35 EDT so Radio Station employees can waste their entire Friday watching Fill try to step it up.
Discuss the current ranking in the comments and if by chance you’re at the tournament following Fill, let him know that Going Concern (and Tim Flynn) would like to see more out of him today.
Preliminary Analytics | 08.14.09
• Obama Considers Raising Fees on Larger Financial Institutions – In other news, the President giving consideration to anything appears to be news. [Bloomberg]
• Tax-Cheat Showdown: Fess Up or Stay Quiet? – The Journal seems to think that playing Russian roulette with the IRS is an option worth considering. [WSJ]
• Blackstone’s Schwarzman Tops Best-Paid Chiefs With $702 Million – In case you were wondering, it was only $2.3 mil in actual comp and $700 mil in vested options. Not too shab. [Bloomberg]
• Bernie Madoff’s biz partner Frank DiPascali beats drug and gun raps – Man. Dude would have been in some real trouble had this gotten slapped on him too. [NYDN]
Phil Mickelson Gets 9 Boxed
We’re upping our coverage of Phil Fill Mickelson’s quest to not come in second place at this year’s PGA Championship.
In the spirit of performance review season, we thought we’d see where Phil Fill would fall on the illustrious Radio Station 9 box.
See the initial ranking, after the jump
As you can see, Phil Fill is right where he needs to be. We’d like to see him step up his game and shoot for that EP though. Right now we hear that he’s +1 at the turn for his first round. We’ll update you tomorrow morning with his first round results and his updated ranking.
Feel free to approve or disapprove of the current rating and give us your suggestions about where you think Phil Fill should be.
Review Comments | 08.13.09
• Finally, something we can agree on [A Whole Lotta Nothing]
• California To Stop Issuing IOUs As Budget Stabilizes – FTW Arnie. [NPR]
• PwC, do you have some Colonial Bank sins to confess? [JDA]
• UBS tax deal forged in sweat-drenched talks: source Morons should’ve known the a/c was going to get turned off. Chocolate probably melted too. [Reuters]
• Rick Pitino Not Coming to Samford Law – Nope. He’s being extorted by a woman who he paid $3k to have an abortion. [ATL]
Deloitte is Baiting the New Hires
On a day like today, we never thought we’d be telling you about a firm actually spending money but color us surprised.
Deloitte will start issuing iPhones to partners, principals, and directors starting Monday, according to a tip we received and will be available to “eligible personnel on Monday, September 14.”
So the obvious question is who the hell is eligible? The trend seems that senior associates haven’t been getting squat so our money would be on the new hires getting the new toys gadgets business tools in order to write down everyone’s order for take out but we’ll keep our fingers crossed for you SA’s.
Ernst & Young Ups the Ante
Guest 46 @7:17 makes a good point and wants everyone to get some perspective on a firm’s priorities. Don’t even think for ONE SECOND that your office is thrifty stingy until they axe a corporate volunteering event because it conflicts with the FSO All Hands Webcast*.
More, after the jump
Uncle Ern would like you to forget about these difficult times by staying within the confines of your cube farm and getting down with a mandatory webcast because there are plenty of people without jobs out there that could volunteer instead.
The Radio Station takes a slight different approach, clearly thinking that if everyone sacrifices one night of open bar to help others, the joy you feel will certainly beat puking and then passing out in the bathroom at some hotel.
So now the debate looms: what firm currently wins the award for the best example of a company channeling its inner-George Costanza: E&Y or the Radio Station? Discuss in the comments and if you’ve got additional examples to bolster the case for/against your firm, please share.
*That’s the word we got from E&Y, so if someone can elaborate on just what the hell that is, that’d be great.
KPMG Takes Phil Mickelson FTW
Because we’re big fans of shameless promotion, we’re starting our coverage of the quest of the Radio Station’s walking billboard, Phil Mickelson, to win the PGA Championship. He’s teeing off circa now, so drop what you’re doing and get to at TV Radio Station duffer geeks.
Phil won the tournament back in 2005 but gets lots of attention for being a bridesmaid at the U.S. Open five times. Most notably for our purposes, he has not won any majors since he signed with the Radio Station back in early 2008.
No word on where Phil is falling on the 9 box rating system or if his visions of sugar plums have been dashed but if someone could put us in touch with his performance counselor or get us a copy of his contract with KPMG, that would be great.
Bean Counter Reputations Hit a New Low
A woman who was a CFO for a charity that invested with Bernie is claiming, in a book of course, that she not only had all her personal money invested with him that went poof but that she was also bumping uglies with the Master Ponz. Supposedly there will be pictures which obviously begs several questions. Check out Dealbreaker for the debate.
Sleeping with the enemy is certainly a new low for bean counters. She could’ve done us all a favor and gotten down with Dick Cheney and it wouldn’t look nearly as bad.
Madoff Had Affair With Ex-Hadassah Finance Chief, Her Book Says [Bloomberg]
KPMG Incommunicado?
We’re getting mixed reports on the email going out to Radio Station employees about canceling the one thing to look forward to in the month of December.
We heard the email got sent out to some offices in the West but also that New York hasn’t heard a peep so we’re getting suspicious if the big dogs in NY are reconsidering their Grinchiness.
Let us know whether or not your visions of sugar plums have been dashed or not in the comments.
Do You See What Happens?
The PCAOB was kind enough to issue a couple of examples this week of what happens when you don’t take your role as auditor seriously.
We wouldn’t dream of putting them both in one post so we’ll give you one in the morning to ponder and save the second for later right about the time you’re ready to flip out, so hang in there.
We’ve also done you the courtesy of reading (sort of) both of the orders so that you can remain fully chargeable (not counting the time you take to read this post of course):
Thomas Linden was a partner in the Chicago office of Deloitte and lead engagement partner on Navistar Financial Corporation (NFC). At the 11th hour, prior to filing the fiscal year 2003 10-K, the engagement team realized that assets, revenues, and net profits were overstated by $19.7 million.
Check out the rest, after the jump
Having a typical over-confident management team, NFC had already taken the liberty of announcing the fourth quarter earnings prior to filing the 10-K.
Because Tom Linden was a Big 4 Partner and thus impervious to any challenge he encounterd, he took the following action (all our emphasis):
• Initiated an increase of approximately 50 percent in Deloitte’s planned tolerance for misstatements in NFC’s reported financial results
• Authored, with the assistance of a member of the NFC engagement team, an NFC auditwork paper that inaccurately characterized the reasons for and circumstances surrounding the increase
• Failed to evaluate adequately the risk that NIC’s financial statements were materially misstated due to error or fraud
• Otherwise failed to act with the requisite due professional care and professional skepticism
Okay, so the last two are boring but the first two kinda, sorta give us this impression of what happened:
Dude finds out the numbers are bunk, client isn’t cool with telling their analysts (who NFC told that they had a kick ass quarter) that said numbers are bunk, so Dude up and decides to ABBACADABRA make the tolerance for misstatement 50% higher than it was for the entire audit (read: that’s a lot).
Then, after probably putting the proverbial (or possibly literal) gun to head of the “member of the NFC engagement team”, they wrote a workpaper that supposedly explained why the tolerance was all of sudden 50% higher but the rationale was something to the effect of “because we said so”.
So for all that tomfoolery (snap!), Linden gets fined $75,000 and can’t be associated with a registered accounting firm for two years and which point he can petition to be to be reinstated. Yow-za. To better times, Tom.
ORDER MAKING FINDINGS AND IMPOSING SANCTIONS In the Matter of Thomas J. Linden, CPA, Respondent. [PCAOB]