In a couple months it will be at the one year anniversary of the collapse Lehman Brothers. In order to catch you up on the firm’s progess in paying off the $250 billion in debt owed to creditors, we proudly present The Lehman Store, courtesy of eBay.
So far the Lehman Store has 100% positive feedback with comments such as: “Great Lehman tie and excellent delivery time.” and “A+ SELLER”.
Lehman couldn’t be more pleased, “‘We are really excited to be able to offer this to the public because there is a demand,’ said Lehman spokeswoman Kimberly Macleod in a telephone interview.”
“There is a demand“, people. And since there are currently 66 items on the auction block, you’d better get on this, PRONTO.
Lehman Holds EBay Garage Sale, Hawking Trinkets to Pay Off Debt [Bloomberg]
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Non-Knights Don’t Think Rule Convergence Is All That Important
Not everyone is as hung up on converging U.S. GAAP and IFRS as Sir David Tweedie.
As you may recall, Tweeds delayed his retirement in order to see the rules copulate and bring forth debit and credit harmony.
As admirable as his commitment to the project is, not too many people share his enthusiasm:
A survey by CFA Institute , an international association of more than 16,000 investment professionals, showed that three quarters of respondents believe that improving standards so they are more useful for making investment decisions is “at least as important if not more important” than reducing complexity or convergence.
While respondents generally support convergence, only 6 per cent of those surveyed, including research analysts, portfolio managers, corporate financial analysts and accountants, believe converging the International Accounting Standards Board and its US rival should be the primary objective.
It’s bad enough that Tweeds gets hassled by non-knighted clowns that don’t know a debit from their ass but now there’s a survey out there that says his pet project isn’t that important.
Plus, the SEC doesn’t seem too hung up on it and the FASB has its own problems. Has double-entry chivalry lost all its meaning?
Investors cool on audit convergence [FT]
Let’s Get Right to the Heart of this Thing
And by that we mean money. We’ve started hearing rumors about the starting salaries for new associates and we don’t know what the hell to believe, so we need your help to set us straight.
We’ve heard $50k in Atlanta, $52k in Houston, $57k in DC and $61k in New York. Nothing yet from the left coast, so help us out. Sounds like signing bonuses are either significantly reduced and in some cases completely eliminated. Nothing has been firm specific but we’re guessing they’re all pretty close.
Talk to your fellow newly minted bean counters and find out the sitch on this year’s salaries and how it compares to last year’s newbies for your respective city. Also let us know if your start date has been pushed back. Discuss in the comments or send us the deets at [email protected].
BDO Announces Global Revenues, Reminds Everyone of the Entity Structure
BDO International Global Coordination B.V. announced their global revenue results today of just a smidge over $5 billion. This represents a drop of 4.5% compared to the firm’s prior fiscal year end of September 30.
Newman:
“Our revenues have been affected by difficult market conditions – particularly in the economies of our largest member firms – and the significant reduction in transaction-based activity. Our results have also been affected by currency movements and, in particular, the weakening of many currencies against the US dollar and the euro. We are therefore extremely pleased that overall revenues in euro have grown and that there is only a modest reduction in overall fees when expressed in US dollars,” said Jeremy Newman, CEO of BDO International. “It is particularly pleasing that at a time when many other accounting networks are showing a decline in fee income that our underlying revenues, excluding the effect of currency movements, have increased by almost 5 percent.”
A little less spin from J. New than other Global Chiefs but still the standard optimism. We can’t wait for his blog post. Hopefully he gets more candid but we’re not holding our breath.
On more of a liability note, we were especially impressed with the firm’s “about” section:
BDO International is a world wide network of public accounting firms, called BDO Member Firms. Each BDO Member Firm is an independent legal entity in its own country. The network is coordinated by BDO Global Coordination B.V., incorporated in The Netherlands with its statutory seat in Eindhoven (trade register registration number 33205251) and with an office at Boulevard de la Woluwe 60, 1200 Brussels, Belgium, where the International Executive Office is located. BDO is the brand name for the BDO International network and for each of the BDO Member Firms. The combined fee income of all the BDO Member Firms was $5.03 billion in 2009. The global network has 1,138 offices in 110 countries and more than 46,000 people provide advisory services throughout the world.
Of the six sentences in this paragraph, four seem to be meant to remind everyone that the U.S. firm is on the hook for the $521 million owed to Banco Espirito. Any chance the non-U.S. firms are passing around a basket to help the good old US of A? Anybody? Maybe they’ll think about it? It’s the holidays for crissakes.
Anyhoo, we’re just waiting on KPMG for last major firm to give us the BIG NEWS about their 2009. Maybe it drops tomorrow during the bear manufacturing? Stay tuned.
BDO International Network Announces Revenue Results for 2009 [Press Release]
Earlier GC Coverage of Firm Revenue Results:
The Grant Thornton ‘Global Six’ Campaign Has Hit a Snag
PwC Global Revenue Was Down or Flat, Your Choice
E&Y Revenue Results: ‘Flat revenues certainly don’t tell the whole story’
Deloitte Is Super Proud of Their Presence on Linked In