Category: Big 4

If it happens at a Big 4 accounting firm, we’re talking about it here.

Hurricane Irene Watch: Deloitte Edition

As you may have heard, there’s a bit of a storm coming to the east coast. Since the DC area got the brunt of the earthquake, those in charge of the weather figured the Northeast got a bit short-changed in the natural disaster department. As is typical in these situations, firm leadership sends out some talking points to make sure everyone knows what to do in case worst happens (e.g. client are unable to pay, FOBs stop working). Deloitte’s message came out late yesterday and our tipster was not impressed:

Here’s our token disaster update from Uncle D. Not even one reference to being careful and staying safe??? Our disaster plans include taking work home with us and backing up our laptops in case we’re killed. That’s a new low, even for the Big 4.

Northeast Update

Hurricane Irene

To all Northeast professionals:

As you are likely aware, Hurricane Irene is gaining momentum and officials have issued watches for the Northeast area starting on Saturday, August 27.

This email contains important information for you to do and consider:

· While our office is currently scheduled to be open on Monday, use your own judgment regarding your personal safety and coordinate with your direct Supervisor or Manager to advise them of your plans.

· Take your laptop, related accessories, and any files that you may need home with you.

· Be sure to complete a back-up on your laptop prior to the weekend in case of any power outages.

· If you are in an office with a window, clear all articles from the window ledge and remove any boxes from the floor.

· If you are using an airport in the region, check your flight status before leaving for the airport. The Deloitte Travel Center [redacted] can help with any necessary re-scheduling.

· For ideas on making a family plan, visit Ready America, and go to the National Hurricane Center website for detailed storm updates.

We will continue to monitor the storm and its path over this weekend. If there is a change to our office’s status, we will issue an email before 6:00 a.m. Monday morning with further instructions.

Stay safe,

[redacted]
Northeast Regional Operations Leader

Well, “Stay safe” as a valediction could be understood as “be careful/be safe” but our tipster sure didn’t take it that way. If you find your firm’s Irene information email to be hysterical, indifferent or if your firm seems to be blowing the whole thing off, we’d love to see it. Send it our way.

All of the Big 4 Land on This Year’s Vault Consulting 50 List (2012)

Back with more lists that include your favorite accounting firm. Today’s edition is the Vault Consulting 50. Mostly this list consists of firms that you wish you could work for but you can’t because you either have no pedigree or are dumber than a sack of hammers. That said, all the Big 4 are represented with Deloitte Consulting breaking into the top 5 (2011 ranking in parenthesis):

1 (1) Bain & Co.
2 (3) McKinsey
3 (2) Boston Consulting Group
4 (6) Deloitte Consulting
5 (25) Monitor Group


6 (8) A.T. Kearney
7 (7) Oliver Wyman
8 (5) The Cambridge Group
9 (4) Analysis Group, Inc.
10 (16) Booz & Company

This is a pretty fun list mostly because there was a lot of jumping around by the firms (*ahem* Monitor Group, where did you come from?). Other notables that you’re probably curious about include:

11 (32) Accenture
12 (13) PwC
21 (19) PRTM (who PwC just purchased)
36 (44) Navigant Consulting
42 (45) Capgemini
45 (42) FTI Consulting
47 (NR) Ernst & Young
50 (NR) KPMG

Jump over to the full list if you’re interested to see the rest of the Top 50 and here’s Vault’s methodology for those curious about that sort of thing.

Vault Consulting 50 [Vault]
Last year’s coverage:
Big 4 Have Big Presence on Vault’s Prestige List, Less So in Top 50

Today in Spineless Audit Committees: Morris Publishing

As we’re all aware, the Audit Committee is supposed to be one of the key tools in corporate governance. If management is messing around with financial reporting, disclosures or there’s trouble with the auditors, the audit committee should be all over it like stink on a monkey. The audit committee also is in charge of appointing/firing the auditors to prevent management from throwing out auditors who tell them things that they don’t like.

Apparently this is not the case with Atlanta-based Morris Publishing. In a recent 8-K, the company explained that they fired Deloitte and more or less admitted that their audit commorthless:

Dismissal of Auditor.

On August 17, 2011, Morris Publishing Group, LLC (“Morris Publishing”, “we”, “our”, “us”) dismissed Deloitte & Touche LLP (“D&T”) as its independent registered public accounting firm.

The decision to allow our management, at its discretion, to change auditors had been unanimously approved by our Board of Directors and its Audit Committee on July 18, 2011. [this is my emphasis]

The audit reports of D&T on our consolidated financial statements as of and for the years ended December 31, 2010 and December 31, 2009, did not contain any adverse opinion or disclaimer of opinion, nor were they qualified or modified as to uncertainty, audit scope, or accounting principles, except:

(A) The audit report as of and for the year ended December 31, 2009 included the statements, “As discussed in Note 6 to the consolidated financial statements, on January 19, 2010 the Company filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. On February 17, 2010 the Bankruptcy Court entered an order confirming the plan of reorganization which became effective after the close of business on March 1, 2010.”

(B) The audit report as of and for the year ended December 31, 2010 included the statement, “As discussed in Note 10 to the financial statements, the accompanying 2009 financial statements have been restated to correct a misstatement.”

During the two fiscal years ended December 31, 2010 and December 31, 2009, and during the subsequent interim periods through June 30, 2011, there were no (1) disagreements with D&T on any matter of accounting principles or practices, financial statement disclosure, or auditing scope or procedures, which disagreements if not resolved to the satisfaction of D&T would have caused D&T to make reference in connection with their report to the subject matter of the disagreement, or (2) “reportable events” as defined in Item 304(a)(1)(v) of Regulation S-K; except as follows:

(A) We reported in April 2011 that management discovered errors in the accounting treatment for debt extinquishment such that our financial statements as of and for the year ended December 31, 2009, and the interim periods ended March 31, 2010, June 30, 2010 and September 30, 2010, should no longer be relied upon, and that the correction of these errors will be reflected within our Form 10-K for 2010 and subsequently filed interim reports; and

(B) as reported in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2010, we identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting with respect to the operational effectiveness of controls in the area of accounting for complex non-recurring transactions. As a result of this material weakness, we concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of December 31, 2010.

We provided D&T with a copy of this Current Report on Form 8-K, and requested that D&T furnish us with a letter addressed to the Securities and Exchange Commission stating whether D&T agrees with our statements made in response to the disclosures required by Item 304(a)(3) of Regulation S-K. We subsequently received the requested letter, and a copy of such letter is filed as Exhibit16.1 to this Current Report on Form 8-K.

So it appears that Morris Publishing is definitely one of those clients. The kind that makes you wish that you had chosen a career that’s less likely to make you want to jump out of a window. Anyway, the aforementioned letter from Deloitte states the following:

We have read Item 4 of Morris Publishing Group LLC’s Form 8-K dated August 16, 2011, and we have the following comments:

1. We agree with the statements made in paragraphs 1 and 3 through 12.

2. We have no basis on which to agree or disagree with the statement made in paragraph 2.

In other words, Deloitte is saying, “Yes, we agree that your financial reporting is a mess and that your internal controls are awful. And if you want to admit that your audit committee is a bunch of lackeys for management, we’re not going to stop you.”

8-K [SEC]
Deloitte Letter [SEC]

Tax Intern Wants to Know What Job Opportunities Exist After a Three Year Stretch at a Big 4 Firm

Ed. note: Willing to take some advice from three strangers and peanut gallery full of overworked, underpaid paper pushers (aka spreadsheet jockeys)? Email us at advice@goingconcern.com with your problems.

Hi!

First I just want to say that this website made all the down time during my Big 4 internship bearable!! Seriously, there are no words to express my gratitude!

I’ve learned a lot from your site, and I’m kinda hoping you can give me some advice…

Right now I have a full time job offer in Tax, but lately I’ve been questioning if this is the right move for me.

Honestly, I don’t think I can handle more than 3 years of public accounting, so I was wondering what job opportunities there are in the private sector for tax professionals with only two to three years of public accounting experience? (I feel like the focus is usually on audit, so I’m finding I don’t really know a lot about the tax world outside of the Big 4).

Also, I would eventually love to work for a nonprofit…would I have better luck at finding a job in this sector with an audit or advisory background, as opposed to tax?

Thanks a million!!!!

Clueless

Dear Clueless,

Thanks for stopping by GC this summer and squeezing us into your “busy” internship days. (Shameless plug – remember to talk about this site when you return to campus this fall. We’ll be talking about recruiting on a regular basis).

Let’s assume that you are going to accept the offer for Big 4 tax. Maybe you have an MS in tax. Maybe there are not any audit positions available for campus hires. Maybe you have a crush on the lead engagement partner. Not my biz. Whatever your situation, you should be focusing on making yourself as merlo-rounded as marketable as possible. A few ideas:

1) CPA – Not even a question. Get it done immediately.

2) Request an audit rotation – As you experienced this summer, there are times when things get a bit slow for tax professionals. Request short term rotations into audit where you can receive additional exposure. This will be marginally easier to do if your CPA is already completed.

3) Seek out non-profit clients – It does not matter if your experience is on the audit or tax side; the goal here is to receive client exposure for a look at the culture/business model/workplace environment at some of your local NFP’s.

4) Volunteer – If NFP clients are not an option, try to find time in your schedule to volunteer. Like any new job possibility, you should research what life is like at a non-profit before jumping into the career move.

As for private sector jobs, with 2-3 years tax experience you’ll have little trouble, as many businesses are trying to do more tax work in-house as opposed to contracting it out to their CPAs. I’d encourage you to stick it out until Senior Associate if you can, since this will give you ample opportunities outside the firm (and maybe a nice get-away). Good luck.

GCers – your thoughts?

Today in Sketchy Chinese Company News: Ernst & Young Suspends Audit of Zungui Haixi

It’s been quite the year for the Chinese-based, reverse-merger clients of accounting firms. There have been curious press releases, audit workpapers held hostage, and the run-of-the-mill blowing off of auditor recommendations among other things. With all that, you probably figured the fun was over.

Not so! The latest in China-doesn’t-really-know-what-the-hell-it’s-doing news is the report that Ernst & Young has walked out on Zungui Haixi, an athletic footwear and apparel company listed in Canada. Why? Well, it’s not really clear but it sounds like Zungui has some explaining to do:

Zungui said auditor Ernst & Young LLP has advised its board that its has suspended its audit for the year ended June 30, 2011, until the company “clarifies and substantiates its position with respect to issues pertaining to the current and prior year”.

Ernst & Young recommended that the issues identified be addressed by an independent investigation, the company said in a brief statement that did not provide any details on the issues.

As we all know, “issues” could be just about anything from missing cash, to a CFO resigning. Hopefully it’s nothing quite so serious and the crack squad of investigators assigned to the task will get to the bottom of it and not wait for Roddy Boyd to pick it up.

Zungui Haixi shares tumble after E&Y suspends audit [Reuters]

Let’s Congratulate the New Deloitte Partners and Directors

Perhaps it’s no accident that Joe Echevarria’s Q&A dropped in the Journal today because we also had the good fortune to have the list of new partners and directors forwarded to us earlier today. We still waiting for confirmation of the details from various Deloitte PR folks so we won’t give you names but we’re sharing a number of cities and practices after the jump.

Altogether there are 144 new partners and 190 new directors for fiscal year 2012. These numbers vary a little bit with our first report of the new partner numbers from a few weeks back. In that post, our tipster informed us that had there were 146 partners and 180 directors. These differences, for our purposes, are deemed immaterial, although we’re sure anyone directly affected would disagree.

Partners

AERS: 55 Total. Cities with the largest numbers of promotees: New York – 12; Chicago – 4; Wilton, CT – 4; Los Angeles – 3; Dallas – 3; San Francisco – 2; Orange County -2.

Consulting: 48 Total. Big winners: Atlanta – 5; Chicago 5; San Francisco – 5; Los Angeles – 4; New York – 3; Orange County – 3; Kansas City – 3; Boston – 3; Arlington – 3.

FAS: Six total: New York – 3; Dallas – 2; Los Angeles – 1.

Tax: 32 Total: New York – 6; Chicago – 5; Houston – 3; Washington – 3; Atlanta – 2.

USA: Three total: Atlanta, Washington and New York each had one.

Directors

AERS: 56 total. Show-off cities: New York – 14; San Francisco – 3; Cleveland – 3; Salt Lake City – 2; Princeton – 2; Philadelphia – 2; Parsippany – 2; McLean – 2; Chicago – 2.

Clients & Industries: Six total: New York – 3; Philadelphia, Charlotte and San Francisco all had one.

Consulting: 53 total. Notables: San Francisco – 6; Chicago – 6; New York – 5; Atlanta – 3; Boston – 3; Minneapolis – 3; McLean – 3; Washington – 3.

FAS: Four total – Washington 2; New York and Chicago – 1.

Field Operations: Two – Atlanta and Hyderbad

Finance: A pair in Hermitage, TN.

Markets & Offerings: Two in Chicago and nine cities with one each.

Other Shared Services: One lonely soul in Wilton, CT.

PR/Communications: One in New York and one in Wilton.

Research/Innovation: Hermitage and Wilton with one each.

Strategy, Brand and Innovation: One happy camper in Los Angeles.

Talent: One each for Chicago, Parsippany, Boston and Indianapolis.

Tax: 38 total: Chicago – 7; New York – 5; San Francisco – 4; Atlanta – 2; Boston – 2; Los Angeles – 2; Philadelphia – 2.

Tech: One each for New York, Camp Hill, PA and Hyderbad

USA: One soul in Stamford, Rosslyn, Arlington, Richmond and Wilton.

So congratulations to all the new partners and directors. Leave them some well wishes in the comments. The only question now is, which one of these rainmakers is buying Joe’s house?

Deloitte CEO Joe Echevarria Has Been Listening to a Lot of Bellyaching

The Wall St. Journal published a little Q&A with Deloitte CEO Joe Echevarria today to get an idea of what’s been going on since he took the reins as the head of the U.S. firm. It’s been nearly 100 days since JoeE got the nod and the flaks at Deloitte probably felt as though it was as good of a time as ever to roll out their new man.

Oddly enough, it’s been about 30 days since we told you that JE’s Westchester home was up for sale and since none of you cheapskates have bothered to help him out, this gives us the opportunity to remind you that it’s still up for grabs.

Anyway, this Q&A. It’s about what you might expect – but we’ll try to jazz it up for you.

For starters, did you know Joe worked at gas station in the Bronx? Yes, he’s already tougher than you’ll ever be. But while he was washing windows and filling up the locals, he noticed that the accountant didn’t seem to do diddly squat and made WAY more money than he did:

What stood out to me was I worked all day and I was making whatever minimum wage was at the time. The accountant came into the gas station once a month, did something, and walked out with a lot more money than I made in a week.

Back when Joe started at the firm, things were a lot different. For example: email. What is this fancy crap?:

I started at Haskins & Sells, the predecessor to Deloitte. I started in the audit practice. All the tasks were hierarchical in those days, so you had to work your way up. We weren’t in an environment where everything is electronic. We had to get mail. It didn’t just come over some laptop.

In his first 100 days, what’s been Joe’s biggest accomplishment? Making important leadership appointments? Overseeing the consolidation of regions? Nope. Listening to partner complaints:

One of the goals we’re beginning to accomplish is having a conversation. We opened up a communication vehicle with our partners and our directors that I call Social CEO. It gets the partners to engage, open dialogue, ask survey questions and ask questions of me or others. I get every comment.

How about this economy? We might be looking at a double-dip which could have some Green Dotties a little worried. But have no fear, Joe & Co. are all over it:

Once upon a time there was a view that there would be a rebound. I would say now the probabilities of a rebound are diminishing and the probability of a double dip is increasing. We have a set of plans that we would undertake for any of those scenarios. This isn’t new for us.

And if those plans don’t go as they should, there won’t be too many sad faces:

The first thing is we look at the costs that we incur and how much ahead we’re hiring. Maybe 18,000 [new hires] becomes 17,000.

See? No cause for concern.

For Deloitte CEO, Hard Economic Times Are Nothing New [WSJ]

Crooked CFO: “KPMG knows nothing about the character traits of criminals.”

Earlier this week we shared with you the latest analysis from KPMG that listed “key fraudster traits” and some of them seemed to describe a lot of the people you have worked or are currently working for. Things like “volatile,” “unreliability,” “unhappy,” and “self-interested” describes everyone I’ve ever been in around in the corporate world to one extent or another.

Since I was skeptical of this list, I asked Sam Antar what he thought of it. If you’ve been reading us for awhile, you’re familiar with Sam. If you’re new, I’ll do a quick refresher. Sam was the CFO of Crazy Eddie’s and was one of the masterminds behind one of the biggest financial frauds of the 1980s. While you (and I) were eating cereal in front of the TV on Saturday morning, Sam and his cousin Eddie were selling electronics and home appliances to our parents for rock bottom prices, while ripping off the government and investors for untold millions of dollars. In other words, the guy is a crook and knew/knows lots of crooks and knows their hopes (read: money), their dreams (read: money) all that crap (read: more money) and what they’ll do to get them. With that, Sam told me what he thought of KPMG’s analysis:

I was both a friendly and likable crook who treated my enablers real well as I took advantage of them. I treated my victims even better than my enablers, as I emptied their pockets. Old saying, “You can steal more with a smile, than a gun.” KPMG knows nothing about the character traits of criminals. They couldn’t even catch me as Crazy Eddie’s auditors. They trusted me!

So maybe – JUST MAYBE – you should also be wary of the client or co-worker that you really like because he/she takes you to lunch every day, gets you laid, takes you for rides in a fancy car or invites you to coke-fueled weekend ragers with seemingly no strings attached. Plus any client that has a viral marketing campaign should get an extra look:

Here Are the (Unconfirmed) Details on the Milestone Award for Newly Promoted PwC Senior Associates

As you may remember, we detailed PwC’s new compensation structure back in spring to much fanfare. There were lots of details but one that sounded especially interesting were the “Milestone Awards.” These are awards given to newly promoted Senior Associates, Managers and Senior Managers/Directors. Specifically for SAs, a “highly specialized individualized offsite training that will help the new seniors make decisions about their careers. This will last for 12-18 months as they adjust to their new roles and held in an offsite, marquis location.”

We now have a few unconfirmed (due to circumstances beyond our control) details for you for this “training” including the “offsite, marquis location”:

• Terranea Resort in Palos Verdes, CA (near Long Beach/LA)
• 4 days long
• For New Senior Associates promoted July 2011
• Not a training/all about fun and celebration
• Gift to new senior associates (all lines of service)
• Monday huge celebration dinner
• Small groups of 10 people
• External experts on personal finance, wellness, nutrition, etc
• Nightly fireside chats with partners
• Adventure-style activities

Weeks
1) Nov 14, 2011
2) Dec 5, 2011
3) Dec 12, 2011
4) May TBD 2012
5) June TBD 2012

Fireside chats? Like the kind with FDR? For your sake I hope Bob Moritz and/or Dennis Nally drop by for the fun, although don’t forget that Nally is done with hot yoga, so DON’T BOTHER ASKING.

And doesn’t the Terranea Resort look pleasant? It’s in California not surprisingly, since P. Dubs has had NOTHING BUT TROUBLE from the clowns in Florida. There is golf, a spa, ocean view dining, etc. etc. Here’s the photo and video gallery if you need more visuals. Of course this kind of romantic setting is perfect for romantic interludes that will allow PwC to perpetuate any incestuous master race of capital market servants they might have.

ANYWAY, it’s our understanding that these details are to be released later this month but we thought you’d like a sneak peak. Discuss your thoughts and/or envy in the comments.

Engineer Curious to Know if an Advisory Role with PwC or Deloitte Would Be a Good Opportunity

Ed. note: Looking for career guidance from a couple of Big 4 expats or our resident permanently ink-stained wench? Email us at advice@goingconcern.com.

Hello,

I have become an avid reader of your website and need your help regarding an opportunity. I have an engineering background and 5 years of experience in the heavy construction industry specifically oil & gas. In hopes to moving on to something different and possibly working as a consultant I have got a chance to work at PWC and Deloitte in a senior associate advisory role. I do know that these companies are primarily in audit but the sales pitch they gave me was that they were trying to build the Capital Projects Advisory division. Do you all think it is good opportunity?

Sincerely,
Chugga Chugga Choo Choo

Dear Chugs,

As a self-proclaimed avid reader, I hope you caught the post I did in June about the engineering consultant in a similar situation as yours. Check it out for feedback focused on what to do once you start at your new gig in a Big 4’s advisory practice.

That said, you’re asking if the chance to work at the #1 or #2 public accounting firms in the world are “good” opportunities. I follow up your question with one of my own:

If working for #1 or #2 is not a good opportunity, what more are you looking for?

So yes, they are great opportunities to jump start your career into the “consulting” slash advisory biz. Sure, they crank out audits and tax returns, but those are very different revenue generating streams than their advisory practices. To put things in more engineering terms – wary of working in the advisory group of PwC or DT because they perform assurance services is like turning down an aerospace engineering job at GE because they also make light bulbs.

Assuming the offer details are similar, look at each firm’s Capital Projects practices. Which group is more established? Have they made other external hires recently? What is each group’s current market share/focus, and what are long term plans?

Good luck with whichever role you pursue, and welcome to the Big 4 community.

Cheers,
DWB

Tara Reid’s New Husband Is a Deloitte Consultant

The lucky new Mr. Tara Reid is none other than Zack (aka Zach, aka Zachary) Kehayov and he works out of Deloitte Consulting’s Washington, D.C. office, according to this LinkedIn profile. Frankly, the profile could use some work but now that he’s got access to American Pie residuals, it probably doesn’t make any difference.

We were tipped off to this information by reader who wrote, “For anyone who thought their aspirations of being in TMZ would be on hold while at Deloitte, think again.” Indeed.


For those not up to speed on their partygirl-suddenly-gets-married news, Reid and Kehayov got married an hour after being engaged on the Greek Isle of Santorini. Reid first announced their engagement on Twitter and then two tweets later she announced “Love in Greece…I am now a wife.”

She then tweeted several pictures including her ring and two portraits of the newlyweds. Her most recent tweet was simply “Bulgaria we love u!” Bulgaria being the home country of the Kehayov.

Anyway, more about Zach – like we said, his LinkedIn profile says he’s in the DC Metro area but on his D Street (that’s Deloitte’s internal Facebook) profile that you can see on the next page, it says he’s in Pittsburgh. His profile also says that he’s a Marymount University graduate, majoring in Financial Economics. He lists Georgetown Private Cliente (now part of DC-based Manna Capital Management) as a previous employer and as co-founder of Semper Sports, LLC (Google search turns up empty).

Gawker called a Kehayov a “a random giant-ring-buying rich guy who works in finance” but a Deloitte consultant hardly qualifies as a “rich guy.” Maybe his father is some captain-of-industry type in Bulgaria who gave his son boatloads of money to study/live/spread seed in the States but even if that’s the case, why would he go to school at Marymount? Perhaps the female to male ratio? But more importantly, why would he work at Deloitte? In Pittsburgh? Anyway, it appears he’s back in DC and is obviously doing all right for himself.

Although judging by this picture from the Daily Mail, Zach looks as though he needed some time away from the Green Dot. The man looks like he was ready for a vacation. We left messages for the numbers we could get for Mr. Kehayov but so far have heard nothing and considering he’s abroad, that’s understandable. Don’t rush back, Zach. You’ve got co-workers that have found peace while on vacation, you can do it too!

KPMG Analysis Finds That a Fraudster’s Traits Mirror Those of Pretty Much Every Boss You’ve Ever Worked For

Of course not all of your bosses are crooks…or are…nah. But just to be on the safe side, make sure you’re giving the stinkeye to anybody with the following characteristics:

• Volatility and being melodramatic, arrogant and confrontational, threatening or aggressive, when challenged.

• Performance or skills of new employees in their unit do not reflect past experiences detailed on resumes.

• Unreliability and prone to mistakes and poor performance, with a tendency to cut corners and/or bend the rules, but makes attempts to shift blame and responsibility for errors.

• Unhappy, apparently stressed and under pressure, while bullying and intimidating colleagues.

• Being surrounded by “favorites,” or people who do not challenge the fraudster, and micromanaging some employees, while keeping others at arm’s length.

• Vendors/suppliers will only deal with this individual, who also may accept generous gestures that are excessive or contrary to corporate rules.

• Persistent rumors or indications of personal bad habits, addictions or vices, possibly with a lifestyle that seems excessive for their income, or apparently personally over-extended in their finances.

• Self-interested and concerned with their own agenda, and who has opportunities to manipulate personal pay and rewards

But as we all know, the ex-stripper wife is the clincher.

[via KPMG]