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Footnotes: The Last Crumb; Focus Turns to Madoff Son; GT’s Dynamic Growth | 07.08.14

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez

You can buy "the last Crumbs cupcake" for $1000 [USA Today]

Accountant's plea signals more possible scrutiny of Madoff son U.S. prosecutors may still be building a case against imprisoned swindler Bernard Madoff's only surviving son, who according to sources was one of the "co-conspirators" mentioned in a plea deal by a Madoff associate last month. Two sources familiar with the Madoff case confirmed to Reuters that people identified only as "co-conspirators" in statements and court documents at accountant Paul Konigsberg's June 24 plea hearing are Madoff's sons, Mark and Andrew, who were employees of the Madoff investment firm. [Reuters]

In case of emergency, accountants flying to cloud It's safer than the, uh, not the cloud [Long Island Business News]

Fitch: full adoption of IFRS in the U.S. unlikely Three joint, or former joint, FASB/IASB projects remain outstanding; financial instruments, insurance, and lease contracts. Differences in financial products between U.S. institutions and those following IFRS, as well as differences in application meant that a one-size-fits-all accounting approach for financial instruments was problematic. Furthermore, on the insurance front there were a number of concerns raised by U.S. constituents, including that the proposal would ensnare both insurance and non-insuring issuers. These considerations resulted in the joint insurance project also falling by the wayside. [BusinessWire]

Grant Thornton appointments target growth in south west [Accountancy Age]

 

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Legg Mason to Financial Crisis: 100 Years, You.

financial-crisis2.jpgThat’s it. It’s official. Worst. Crisis. Ever. If Legg Mason is your gauge on financial crisises, that is.
And since it is such a momentous occasion, guess what this calls for…wait for it…executive bonuses!
Courtesy of footnoted.org, we learn that Chairman and CEO, Mark Fetting’s received approximately a $3M bonus for “leadership of the company during one of the worst financial crises of the last 100 years, which particularly affected financial services companies”
Footnoted goes on to give us some perspective:

Just to make sure, we did a quick check for the word crisis (or crises) at other financial services companies and didn’t come up with anything that even came close. While the word was used in several other proxies, it wasn’t used in a way to justify a bonus and there were no pronouncements about this being the “worst financial crises”.

Okay, so Legg has some melodramatic types writing their filings. But how about some chicanery?:

Equally interesting is that while the board set Fetting’s bonus at 21% of the bonus pool in June 2008, Legg Mason’s loss of $1.9 billion last year meant that there was no bonus pool. But that didn’t stop the bonus because as the comp committee writes in the proxy the net loss was due to just two items and without those two items, the company “would have had net income, and the plan would have produced a total bonus pool large enough to accommodate the annual incentive awards made. Although the terms of the plan do not explicitly provide for the exclusion of those items, the Committee considered the items to be extraordinary expense.”

Seriously, who’s going to let two measly items stop them from paying executives bonuses out of a bonus pool that didn’t really exist? This is financial wartime people, we will not be denied.

Legg Mason calls it: The worst financial crisis [footnoted.org]

Deloitte May Be the #1 Firm of No Fun

heelys.jpgRegardless of who a client is or what their business is, accounting firms don’t like to lose them. Lost revenue, a little bit of a slap in the face, a promise that wasn’t delivered (which, let’s be honest, really isn’t all that rare).
For whatever reason, we find the story that Heelys, the skate shoe company, having fired Deloitte as their auditor, has to be an especially tough pill to swallow for the Big D.
Why, you may ask? How about the fact that Heelys MAKES SHOES THAT HAVE WHEELS ON THEM which might be something fun.
According to Reuters, Heelys gave Deloitte-period the heave-ho primarily because of cost considerations. That may be true but something tells us that the real reason might have been Deloitte putting the kibosh on Heelys request of the audit team to wear the skate shoes while working at the client’s HQ.
Deloitte, like all Big 4 firms, being the fun killer, likely argued that skate shoes did fall under acceptable attire in its dress code.
It was probably only a matter of time until the Heelys audit committee concluded that they had to find another audit firm with smaller sticks up their asses. Partners on the engagement are now quietly stewing with their decision that may have put their firm solidly in the #1 slot for hating all things fun.

Heelys dismisses accounting firm [Reuters]

Grant Thornton’s Determination to Saturate Us with Data on CFOs Knows No Bounds

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for GT_elves.jpgOur prediction that Grant Thornton’s string of press releases related to its survey of CFOs was coming to an end was wrong. Dead wrong.
The firm issued two more today, one related to the financial services companies and one for health care organizations.
While we appreciate all the good work that GT is doing to pull all this information together, we’re definitely to the point we’d like to see something else out of GT. Some people are inspired. We’ll even take the freaky milk company.