Category: News

Accounting News Roundup: IRS Drops Civil Suit Against UBS; PwC’s Diamond Deal; Roni Deutch Is Disappointed in Jerry Brown | 08.27.10

I.R.S. to Drop Suit Against UBS Over Tax Havens [DealBook]
UBS is finally dropping those 4,450 names it owes the IRS and skates past the civil charges.

3PAR Accepts Revised Dell Takeover Bid [WSJ]
“3PAR Inc. on Friday accepted an increased, $1.8 billion takeover offer from Dell Inc., a day after Hewlett-Packard Co. raised its offer in a bidding war for the data-storage company.

Dell’s revised offer matches H-P’s Thursday bid of $27 a share for 3PAR, whose software helps companies manage and store data more efficiently.

The fight over 3PAR illustrates how important it has become for tech companies to dominate the emerging technology known as cloud computing, in which data are managed and accessed over the Internet. Dell and H-P both sell storage products and see 3PAR’s assets as important additions to their portfolios as large technology companies seek to serve all the needs of corporate-technology departments.”

When Litigation Kills the Accounting Profession-Don’t Say You Weren’t Warned! [FEI Blog]
Jim Peterson of Re:Balane guest posted over at FEI Blog where he discussed his speciality – risk surrounding the Big 4.

PricewaterhouseCoopers Trying To Buy Consulting Revenue Again With Diamond Deal [Re:The Auditors]
Francine McKenna discusses PwC’s recently announced purchase of Diamond Management & Technology including whether some of Diamond’s consultants bailed early to avoid becoming a cog in the another public accounting firm, “Did some of the employees bail out before they were signed on as sterile strategists for an ineffective firm struggling under the weight of consulting ‘leadership’ with audit-shaped heads? I know for sure that there were significant groups of BearingPoint consultants that would have rather masticated glass shards than work for a public accounting firm again.”


Official Statement [Roni Deutch: The Tax Lady Blog]
Roni Deutch says Jerry Brown, California’s Attorney General-cum-Democratic nominee for Governor, is playing election year politics. Seems plausible.

Finance Execs React to Herz’s Retirement [CFO]
No one is panicking.

SEC vows more actions over crisis [FT]
The FT is finally getting to the story about the SEC bringing more actions, changing the culture with new teams, yada, yada, yada. Except not everyone is buying it, “[S]everal judges have questioned the SEC’s deals with Citigroup and Bank of America, and some plaintiffs’ lawyers believe the regulator has been too soft.

‘There’s no real difference now to what it was like before Mary Schapiro became chairman,’ said Jacob Zamansky, a lawyer for investors and longtime SEC critic.”

Boeing Postpones Dreamliner Delivery Until 2011 [WSJ]
You’ll have to come up with a different Christmas gift for the boss this year.

Here’s Why Facebook Should Buy ING Direct

This story is republished from CFOZone, where you’ll find news, analysis and professional networking tools for finance executives.

It was revealed this week that Facebook is valued by its private shareholders at over $33 billion, more than Ebay, Yahoo and Dell. For a private company with little more than a year of revenue this is extraordinary.

When the company goes public it will have a hard job living up to this valuation without a significant increase in revenue streams.

One option may be for it to do a transformational transaction prior to its listing. In this way it could incorporate a pumped up revenue stream into its high IPO valuation. One such deal could be for it to buy ING Direct US, the largest online bank in the country.


Under the terms of the Dutch government bail out, ING has to sell ING Direct in the US and Canada by 2012. They will have no shortage of bidders from the financial world, but could it make sense for a non-bank to actually buy the company? And if so, what about Facebook?

Half a billion people now live their online lives through Facebook. It has huge brand value and customer loyalty. For it to generate revenue streams it needs to do more than just offer up ads and sell games.

To get from being a social network site to a commercial network site it needs to drive business, and one of the biggest impediments to online retail business is payments. By owning a bank-and thus a payment platform–Facebook could make it very easy to transact online.

Clearly there would be lots of legal hurdles for such a deal to happen, not least because regulators do not like non-banks owning banks. More specifically, Facebook has had difficulties in the past respecting people’s privacy.

But by allying the huge number of people on the site with an easy to use payments and banking business, Facebook could revolutionize its business and the way that 500 million conduct personal commercial activities on the web.

It could also learn from the clever people at ING Direct about how to protect customer data. It may be a long shot, but the two companies could complement each other very well.

Layoff Watch ’10: Rothstein Kass Making Pre-Labor Day Cuts

From the mailbag:

Thought you’d be interested in hearing that today RK had a few last minute “transitions” or as most know them “lay offs”, these happened in the FS practice in New Jersey about 6 weeks after the official “transition date” in which upper management stated that the “transitions” were over for the year and everyone was safe and could get back to work and not worry. Today we lost 1 supervisor, 1 pending manager and 1 manager all having started their careers home grown at the firm.

Performance reasons were quoted but no one seemed to have a clue it was coming and a pretty big bummer day. Rumor has it that it’s not yet over as some others were not in the office today, doesn’t help the extremely negative morale issue going on at this firm with doom and gloom expectations of raises coming post labor day.

Would love to see some more RK news hit the site from time to time if you get it, not really sure where the firm is heading, up or down and would be great to see what others think??? FS practice is getting demolished in NY and NJ appears to be getting more antsy with every move that management makes.

A voicemail and email to Rothstein Kass spokesman Robert Solomon were not immediately returned.

If you’ve got more info on cuts or other news at RK, get in touch.

Citigroup Blackballs Analyst Claiming the Bank’s DTAs Should Be Written Down

Fox Business Network’s ace news-breaker Charlie Gasparino reports that Citigroup’s management team, including CEO Vikram Pandit and CFO John Gerspach will not meet with CLSA banking analyst Mike Mayo since he’s been telling investors that the big C should be writing down their $50 billion in deferred tax assets.

Carlito reports that Mayo states that this refusal to write down the DTAs amounts to “cooking the books by inflating its earnings through an accounting gimmick.”

Simple question from Mayo via CG, “I’d like to know why all my competitors get meetings with Pandit and the key people there and I don’t.” It’s not like the guy is one of the top banking analysts in the entire world. It’s not like Citigroup has a solid track record of transparent financial reporting. Or did everyone forget that C has the U.S. Treasury as its backstop?

The KPMG audit team can weigh in on this at any time. Or just email us the details.

Analyst: Citigroup is Cooking the Books [FBN]

(UPDATE) Will the Herz and Tweedie Retirements Put the Kibosh on Convergence?

~ Update includes comment from IFAC President Robert Bunting of Moss Adams

Maybe! After all, anything’s possible. The Herz retirement wasn’t exactly expected but since Roberto had two years left in his terms but it’s been suggested that it’s been a rough two years since Barney Frank gave him the tongue lashing of his life over the whole mark-to-market thing.

Regardless, The Journal put it out there that the timing of Herz’s departure causes hella handwringing, most notably on the convergence efforts:

FASB will now have to replace Mr. Herz at the same time that the IASB is alreadycessor to its chairman, David Tweedie, whose terms expires in June 2011. This means that both bodies will have new heads as they enter what could prove to be the end game for the often-thorny process of converging two accounting standards.

This, of course, causes the U.S. GAAP Hawks to squeal with glee and those in pro-IFRS camp to get anxious and will likely lead to heavy lobbying for a replacement that will keep Tweeds dream alive for “one high quality set of global standards” or whatever they’re calling it these days.

Despite the Journal’s anxiety, International Federation of Accountants President Bob Bunting sees the change as an opportunity and things will continue to progress, “While the changes of leadership at the FASB and the IASB offer the opportunity for a fresh look at the convergence process, I would be surprised if any radical change in direction occurs,” Mr Bunting wrote in an email to GC, “The financial market forces and public interest arguments for convergence of the two standards, and possible eventual adoption of IFRS as a single standard continue to be very strong.”

However, since the FASB is expanding back to seven members, that will likely slow the process down (which makes some people happy) even further, especially with empty seats at the table:

The lack of a full board is likely to slow many of FASB’s projects, particularly the move to converge with international rules, said former FASB Chairman Dennis Beresford. “They’re not going to issue anything important on the basis of having only four board members,” he said, adding that Mr. Herz’s departure came as “a complete surprise.”

So, with those seeds of doubt planted, let’s put it to a vote.

Early Exit of FASB Chairman Raises Anxiety [WSJ]

Who Will Replace Bob Herz as FASB Chairman?

Yesterday we learned that FASB Chair Bob Herz would be ending his spectacular 8 year run as the head of our favorite accounting standards setting agency.

What we have not learned is who will be replacing him permanently when he escapes next month. In the interest of helping FASB come up with a qualified replacement, we have a few suggestions. Do we need to submit these in comment letter form or can someone just email over for us?


Patrick Byrne Listen, we know there’s something just not right about the guy and it’s entirely possible that he lacks the actual paper qualifications required of the FASB chair. But to his credit, he can do wonders with financial reporting, especially when it comes to using magical fantasy models very similar to FASB’s own mark-to-Disneyland initiatives. He’d be great for coming up with all sorts of helpful guidance (except when it comes to internal control, he might have to contract out to the IASB on that one) and if the IASB decides to get too lippy, Byrne can simply send Judd Bagley after Tweedie’s ass to “straighten him out,” ifyoufeelme.

Willie Nelson Okay, so we’re pretty sure you have to take a drug test before you’re allowed to run the FASB but assuming Willie can get his hands on some goldenseal, we think we have a winner here. He’s laid back enough to handle hard ribbings by Barney Frank in the event of another bank accounting debacle and who knows, we could put off convergence another 15 years if we can send Nelson over to the IASB with some goodies. They’ll be too busy watching Chapelle’s Show and hunting down Doritos to start messing with the sanctity of GAAP. Win.

The hot chick who got fired from PwC Let’s be real about it, the FASB chairman job used to be an esteemed position but now that we’re trudging ever-forward towards convergence (or, rather, total IASB domination), we don’t actually need anyone with more than half a brain in that position. So why not offer hot chick a job? Qualifications include: standing there looking pretty, keeping your trap shut and ignoring Tweedie’s midnight sexting.

If you have a suggestion, why not let us know? We’ll be sure to include it as an aside in our next comment letter. Whoever they get, can we please PLEASE make sure they slightly more photogenic than our buddy Bob? Seriously, we’re going to miss you, Herz, but man did you make us all look bad.

Bob Herz Retiring as FASB Chair

Eight “successful” years is a helluva run, Bob. Not sure if he’s upstaging Tweedie’s exit next year or what. They’re buds and all. So now the speculation should probably start as to who will replace Roberto. Leslie Seidman will be running things as the “Acting” Chair and if you take the PCAOB’s as example, that “Acting” Chair can sit tight for awhile. Dan Goelzer has been “acting” as the Chair for over at the Board for over a year now.

So the important question is, who’s next to fly this ship? Taking shit from bank lobbiesenerally being known as being the biggest double-entry nerd in a gray suit this side of the pond is not an easy gig. We’d suggest a deputy accountant but there’s probably some silly qualifications that she will disqualify her. Does Tim Flynn put down the bag at KPMG? Do we finally get serious and get a knight to run this thing? Suggestions welcome.

NORWALK, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Board of Trustees of the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) today announced that the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) will grow from five to seven members. The FASB previously operated with seven board members from its inception in 1973 until 2008. In addition, Chairman Robert Herz has decided to retire from the FASB after more than eight years leading the standard-setting board. FASB member Leslie Seidman has been appointed Acting Chairman, effective October 1, 2010.

“Returning the Board to the seven-member structure will enhance the FASB’s investment in the convergence agenda with the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), while addressing the unprecedented challenges facing the American capital markets in the months and years ahead”

“Returning the Board to the seven-member structure will enhance the FASB’s investment in the convergence agenda with the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), while addressing the unprecedented challenges facing the American capital markets in the months and years ahead,” said FAF Chairman Jack Brennan. “The FAF Trustees believe this is the right investment in the standard-setting process at the right time that will enable it to accomplish the many duties that are so critical to the organization’s constituents.” The transition to a seven-member board will occur as soon as the process to recruit and evaluate candidates is complete, which is expected in early 2011.

Mr. Brennan added: “On behalf of the Board of Trustees and, especially, all investors and others affected by the FASB’s work, I want to offer my sincere thanks to Bob Herz for his strong leadership of the FASB in, arguably, the most challenging period in its history. We greatly appreciate his service and congratulate him for a job well done. Moving forward, we are very fortunate to have a highly respected, experienced leader like Leslie Seidman to assume the duties of Acting Chairman.”

Robert Herz, Chairman of the FASB, said: “My more than eight years as Chairman of the FASB have been among the most professionally challenging and personally satisfying of my career. There are hundreds of people I need to thank for their strong support and invaluable contributions to our standard-setting activities. First and foremost, I offer my deep appreciation to my fellow board members and our dedicated and talented staff. I’m very proud of our accomplishments, and I’m confident the board will continue to successfully meet the challenges ahead.”

Ms. Seidman has been a FASB member since July 2003. She has also served the FASB in various staff roles. Prior to joining the board, Ms. Seidman managed her own firm, providing consulting services to major corporations, accounting firms and other concerns, and previously served as vice president of accounting policy at J.P. Morgan & Company. Ms. Seidman started her career as an auditor in the New York office of Arthur Young & Company (now Ernst & Young LLP) and is a certified public accountant.

The Two Best Comment Letters Written to the FASB You’ll Ever Read

Last month we told you about how the American Bankers Association encouraged anyone that disagreed with the FASB’s proposed fair value rule to write a letter telling Herz & Co. how much the proposal suind enough to provide a template for said “FASB Blows” correspondence so the anti-fair value crowd could get the gist of what needed to be said.

The ABA did warn, however, that the FASB hates, loathes, DETESTS form letters, so in order to make a valid point, it was advisable to not simple slap your name in the appropriate place but to articular your own special brand of hatred for the FASB.

As you may recall, many ABA groupies did not heed this warning, which no doubt resulted in Bob Herz and the rest of the Norwalk team using the letters to stoke their mid-summer weenie roast bonfire.

As disappointed as the ABA must have been with the lack of originality, we were sent this shining example that has been making the rounds at the Big 4 (or so we’re told). Our guess is that this is more of what the ABA had in mind:

FASB1

Bravo, James C. Blaine. Bravo. You are most definitely into the brevity thing. You have, presumably, made the ABA proud. But wait, there is a pro-fair value letter worthy of these pages.


Granted, it was written back in May but Brian Cowell is no less passionate than Mr Blaine:

FASB2

Nicely done, both of you. Everyone take note.

Who Leaked the MLB Financial Statements?

This morning we mentioned the Deadspin story that presented leaked financial statements of several Major League Baseball teams. This included the Pittsburgh Pirates who have had 18 straight losing seasons yet remain profitable – making $14.4 million and $15 million in net income for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2008 and 2007 respectively.

The Seattle Mariners financials are also now available and the Texas Rangers numbers will be rolling out tomorrow, so there’s plenty of financial analysis treasure hunting for you to engage in, if that’s your thing.

Fis is unprecedented access to the teams’ financial position and performance, PLUS! all the wonky details of their Summary of Significant Accounting Policies – everything from revenue recognition to prepaid signing bonuses, guaranteed contracts, so on and so forth.

However, it also includes details that give insight into MLB controversial revenue sharing program, such as the Pirates using $44 million in ’07 and ’08 to develop players, as reported by the New York Times. With the lowest payroll in baseball and perpetual loserness, baseball fans in the Steel City might rather see that money spent on some free agents so they have something to discuss between the hockey and football seasons.


But perhaps more importantly, the Times reports that MLB is not taking this breach lightly. Since these teams are privately held, the information is not widely shared and the suspects are few:

Access to the teams’ audited financial statements is usually limited to the commissioner’s office; baseball’s lead bankers, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase; and two accounting firms, Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers. But [Florida Marlins President David] Samson said that “in the course of business, other entities have access.” Teams do not see one another’s financial reports, but receive a general accounting of where they rank compared with the other 29 clubs in profitability.

Of course this is the point in the post where you’d expect us to point the finger at E&Y or PwC but in reality, it seems unlikely that the leak would come from either firm. Likewise, it doesn’t make much sense for it to have come from BofA or JP Morgan. All these firms no doubt boast the services they provide to Major League Baseball and any professional servicing those clients wouldn’t dare risk damaging their firm and their career by exposing sensitive financial data of such a high profile client. Does it really make sense for an E&Y/PwC/BofA/JPM employee to leak the financials to Deadspin on a whim?

The leak has to be from within the commissioner’s office. First of all, someone there has the access to all these records and it is extremely more likely that Deadspin has sources in the commissioner’s office that would be willing to leak the information (especially teams no one gives a shit about). Secondly, we shouldn’t forget that baseball has had its share of squealers. There’s no reason to believe that the whole sport isn’t infested with them.

And as we mentioned – who gives a shit about the Pirates, Mariners or Marlins? These are low payroll teams whose financial information doesn’t cause much of a stir other than the fact that this is first time the data has been available to the public at large. If someone really wanted to bomb the hell out of us, the Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs financial statements would have been leaked and then the disparity (financial and thus, competitiveness) between the teams would really on display.

Baseball Chases Leak of Financial Documents [NYT]
MLB Confidential, Part 2: Seattle Mariners [Deadspin]

Survey: Most People Get Away with Sending Inappropriate Emails

Recent data suggests that most of you sending emails regarding the person most likely to sleep their way to partner, the hot piece of ass that isn’t pulling their weight or a recruit from a certain school that asks less-than flattering questions about your firm, are getting way with passing it along to their friends and/or colleagues.

That being said, it does happen. One in twenty to be precise. Speaking from personal experience, sometimes people are reading your emails, especially if something goes viral within a firm and happens to sneak outside the firm. That’s when TPTB get on the horn and demand that people are held responsible.


Hey, nobody’s perfect right? When my particular reprimand came down, all I could do was laugh and say, “Yep, I did send that. Hell, it’s says “From: Caleb Newquist” right there. It was a bad decision on my part and I understand you have to do what you have to do.” And I moved on. Besides, I wasn’t the only one. It was communicated to me that literally hundreds of people were being reprimanded for forwarding the message so it was largely a damage control project and plenty of people were being told, “Don’t do that again. Ever.”

But for the most part, it sounds like most of your “inappropriate messages” fly beneath the radar, including:

Inappropriate jokes, angry messages sent in the heat of the moment, and scathing email replies forwarded to the wrong people are among some of the email gaffes that have landed office workers in hot water with their employers or clients.

One in five of those questioned said they had sent an inappropriate email in the heat of the moment, while almost a third said they had accidentally hit “reply all” instead of “reply”.

More than one in 10 of the 2,000 people surveyed admitted they had mistakenly sent an email criticising a colleague to the person they were insulting.

So while the Telegraph makes a point to note that 1 out of 20 people have been reprimanded for accidentally saying “God, can you believe the partner’s B.O. today?” in the “heat of the moment” it also shows that 19 people are having a great time sending inappropriate emails and not having any problems at all.

However, if you’ve been caught red-handed sending a dirty joke and/or discussing your booze-fueled business trip that may or may not have involved a party back at the hotel room, and were later asked to explain yourself, we’d love to hear about it below. And of course, send us any and all future inappropriate emails that would be 100% appropriate for these pages.

Not that we’re suggesting that you use your work email in an inappropriate manner. You’re representing your firm after all. Have the common sense to use a different email address.

One in 20 people reprimanded for inappropriate emails [Telegraph]

Do Accounting Firms Care if You’re On Drugs?

Recent data suggests that Wall Street types are still doing drugs with unsurprisingly regularity but their tastes have changed with the seriousness of the times.

That is, they’ve traded in the hard-charging llelo fueled days of ’06 – ’07 with a more reserved and apathetic ganja attitude of ’09 – ’10. Trading coke for pot. Blow foe all know that accountants follow/chase the money so we can safely assume that their proclivities for drug usage have followed suit.

However, you rarely hear about drug abuse problems at accounting firms. So where is all this drug use happening? Apparently, it’s going down at REITs:

The highest levels of abuse seem to be at real estate investment trust companies, a sector that, incidentally, does more random testing than others.

But the test results generally capture drug use among new hires, candidates who knew that they would likely be tested. Random drug testing is rare, according to a spokesman for a bulge-bracket bank who asked to remain unnamed.

Among existing employees, psychologists and counselors say that drug abuse has not slackened. Some even say it is peaking, exacerbated by the credit crisis and the volatile and tenuous recovery that has ensued.

As the article states, random drug testing is already rare but where it happens the least isn’t mentioned.

But like we said, you rarely hear about the drug use that goes on at accounting firms. Which makes us wonder if it’s because it’s not happening period. To our knowledge – accounting firms don’t give employees drug tests as a condition of employment and simply defer to clients who require them (a certain Swiss Bank with proximity to shroom burgers comes to mind).

We’re not suggesting that every Big 4 office is like Bernie Madoff’s north pole but there’s enough of it happening that there is a presence within the firms.

It’s no surprise. You Big 4 types (and anyone at a CPA firm for that matter) go through your personal hell on a seasonal (or maybe a constant) basis so there’s probably a direct correlation with your usage and the time of year. For example – that tax manager that manages to work night after night after night with amazing focus as the final 2010 deadlines draw near? You think they just plug themselves in when they finally go home to recharge for the next day?

Plus, as you’re acutely aware, it’s not just the illegal drugs that are popular, “[T]he rage these days is a Pez dispenser with the head of a red devil. Inside? Pills of Oxycodone or Percocet.” And don’t forget the people that have been popping Adderall since college so they can study for 12 straight hours. That has simply carried over into the 14-15 hour days for X amount of consecutive days during busy season.

And don’t get us started on people who get addicted to fast food (a drug in its own right) in order to save time and eat at their desks. The chemicals in the food from [pick your chain] are just as addictive as any drug off the street or from the pharmacy and cause just as much damage to our bodies.

But as you’ve no doubt heard over and over in the peanut gallery, getting your work done is ultimately what matters. Come hell or high water. Come dependancy, insane weight loss or insane weight gain. And lots of people do whatever it takes to cope with that reality.

So? What’s the scoop these days inside your firm? Are drug tests just a section of your offer letter that you agree to, only to be never reminded of it again? Anyone every been tested? We understand that no one is operating heavy machinery out there but bad things can still happen, quite possibly in the name of client service.

Wall Street Kicks Coke in Favor of Pot and Pills [FINS]

Accountant Convinces David and Victoria Beckham That They Don’t Need Seven Gardeners

The Beckhams were concerned that “ordinary people were tightening their belts,” so what did they do? They fired a bunch of ordinary people! All it took was a shrewd accountant to tell them, “You’re pouring money down the drain.”


The fun-killing accountant is then quoted by a source in The Sun that employing 50 people around the word isn’t necessary, ” ‘You CAN afford to employ all of these people. But why the hell DO you?’ “

Vic took it to heart, so she cut 14 people off the payroll. This included a housekeeper that worked for them for eight years who was replaced by “two ‘cost efficient’ foreign staff,” so things aren’t completely falling apart.

As for the gardening, they’re down to one and now that poor bastard has to double as a chauffeur. Can you imagine the hell that must be having that guy track muddy shoes into the car? The horror.