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Deloitte Passes on the Opportunity to Admit Mistakes

DTa.jpgObviously we were too busy promoting democracy and creativity to notice Deloitte getting named in Private Capital Management co-founder Bruce Sherman’s lawsuit against Bear Stearns.
Continued, after the jump


WSJ:

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, alleges that [Jimmy “Don’t Call Me Cheech”] Cayne and others at Bear made material misrepresentations about the company’s financial health and its risk management, causing Sherman to hold shares of Bear stock he “would otherwise have sold months before Bear ultimately collapsed.”
“Defendants knew that the market and the financial press would view Sherman’s sale of his Bear stock as a loss of confidence in Bear by a well-known and long-standing investor,” the lawsuit said. “This, in turn, would have undermined confidence in Bear’s management at a critical time when Bear’s liquidity and Bear’s valuation of its assets were open to question following the implosion of two Bear-sponsored hedge funds in the summer of 2007.”
Cayne; Warren Spector, Bear Stearns’ former co-president and chief operating officer; Bear Stearns; and its outside auditor Deloitte & Touche are defendants in the case.

Regardless of what Deloitte ‘knew’, the firm did not jump at the chance to start a trend of Big 4 firms issuing mea culpas. Big D issued the following statement, which we plan on to memorize for future reference, per the Journal, ‘Deloitte believes the complaint to be totally without merit and we will defend against it vigorously.’ We’ll continue to update you on the vigorous defense as it progresses.
PCM Co-Founder Sues Bear Stearns For Misstatements [WSJ]

Jim Quigley Takes Exception with the Notion That Deloitte Isn’t the Biggest Firm in India

You don’t need to tell Jim Quigley that it’s only a matter of time before Deloitte is the largest accounting firm ON EARTH.

In a Q&A with India’s Business Standard, Quigs was asked about the shrinking gap and you better believe the man is all over it like a hard-hitting interview at Davos:


After five years, we have eliminated the gap. They were once $2 billion larger than us.

At $26.1 billion for FY ’09, Deloitte is all over PwC ($26.2 billion in FY ’09) for the Biggest of the Big 4 in terms of revenue. However, JQ was a little more defensive when asked about the firm’s presence in India.

But if one looks at India, the perception is that you are the smallest amongst the Big Four.
I think we are the largest in India when you look at the number of people. We have 12,000 Deloitte people in India and we are on our way to 20,000 people.

In other words, “Thanks for bringing that up but since India revenue isn’t known, head count is how we’ll measure this. And in that particular case, we’re the largest. Next question.”

But a lot of them are your [Business Process Outsourcing] employees at Hyderabad.
Yes, we have about 8,000 people there. And we are growing that towards 15,000. They are focused on serving the global market place.

We have the number one audit share in India. Our audit share of the listed companies is larger than any of the competitors. My goal is to go for balanced growth in India. I want to be one-third audit, one-third tax and one-third consulting. Growing the tax and consulting businesses is easier than it is to move the audit share because companies don’t change auditors often. The fact that we start with the largest audit share is a terrific foundation for us. My aspiration is that I want to be the absolute leader in professional services, especially in important emerging markets like India.

Translation: “Are BPO people not employees? Why wouldn’t we count them? And since we are counting them we’re going to double that number, FYI. Oh, and we have the biggest audit share in India and it we’ll eventually be biggest in everything so then they’re won’t be room for ‘debate’ (making the air quotes).”

In how many years?
In three to five years, I want to be the absolute leader here. I have more people here than anyone else today.

That is, “Deloitte numero uno by 2015! Did I mention that we have the most people here?”

Then the best part, comes a little later when Quigs gets the Satyam question:

How has Deloitte strengthened its internal controls after the Satyam scandal?
I don’t think you can say that if one firm has had an issue with Satyam, therefore all professional services firms have a problem.n the aftermath of that fraud, and it was a management fraud first, to make sure that we did not have comparable circumstances, we went back and reviewed our 50 largest audits. We challenged our partners and thinking. We were satisfied that we have completed procedures that will reduce to a relatively low level the risk that an undetected error could occur. Our commitment to quality is tireless. And that is what you want the market leader to be.

So it sounds as though Satyam will be NBD for Deloitte, unlike some firms. We know India is a fraud paradise so it wasn’t was their fault; they were duped. Deloitte is undupable.

‘Deloitte wants to be the absolute leader here’ [Business Standard]

Promotion Watch ’11: PwC Admits 136 New Partners

Last year, we learned about new partner promotions at the House of Moritz the first week of June. This year, we had to wait for a press release from the Denver office to get issued before we heard anything about it. Now, I’m not mad (although Adrienne probably is) just disappointed. If you forgot how to get in touch with us, it’s a simple as clicking email us or on our names in the margin. Regardless, we got on the horn and managed to get the whole scoop.


136 new partners admitted firm-wide, representing all PwC service lines.
–53 new partners in Assurance,
–50 in Tax,
–32 in Advisory and
–one in Internal Firm Services.

The new class of 136 is 53 more than last year, so that clears a few extra spots out of the parking lot at senior manager. The promotions bring the total count of partners in the States to over 2,300.

So a hearty congratulations to all the new PwC partners. No doubt you’ve worked and worked and worked for it. We just hope emotions were kept in check at any celebrations.