Go out of your way to communicate to your top performers that you value their work and want to keep them. A few years ago, we reviewed research from one of the world’s leading accounting firms. They conducted interviews with top performers who were leaving the firm. What did they discover? Over half of the best people who left had no idea that the company thought they were important or even that the company wanted them to keep working there! They did not leave because they wanted more money; they just wanted to know that the company cared about them.
43-year-old David Ibels, missing KPMG Australia partner
A KPMG spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that some of his colleagues are taking part in the search.’We are in close contact with and are providing support for his family during this difficult time of uncertainty,’ they said.
‘Many of our people are participating in the police search.
‘We are all hopeful that David is located shortly and is safe and well, and we especially send our thoughts to his family.’
Over the past three years, Mr Ibels was a key figure in the development of KPMG Australia’s $800million Brisbane headquarters at Heritage Lanes, in the city’s CBD.
The building, developed by property giant Mirvac, is powered by renewable electricity and has net zero carbon emissions.
Just one month ago, Mr Ibels was proudly posting about the achievement on LinkedIn.
A controversial author and professor is scheduled to give a talk to Deloitters across the pond on Halloween and people aren’t happy. The Telegraph:
Deloitte staff have expressed concern after the company invited a professor who described Winston Churchill as a white supremacist to give a talk about identity to employees.
Professor Kehinde Andrews, whose latest book is entitled The Psychosis of Whiteness, is set to give a talk to Deloitte staff on 31 October about “identity and authenticity and black excellence” as a part of a series of lectures the City consultancy firm hosted for black history month.
Mr Andrews, a professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University, described Winston Churchill as the “perfect embodiment of white supremacy” and the British Empire as “far worse than the Nazis” at an event in Cambridge in 2021. In the same year, discussing Queen Elizabeth II, he said on Good Morning Britain: “The Queen is probably the number one symbol of white supremacy in the entire world.”
A Deloitte source told The Telegraph: “My colleagues and I find Deloitte’s association with Andrews, a prolific anti-white race activist, highly concerning and uncomfortable.”
“He recently published a book called ‘The Psychosis of Whiteness’, in which he implies that whiteness, and therefore white people, are mentally ill by nature.”
“His views are unpleasant and divisive, and he should not be anywhere near an important British company like Deloitte.”
Reaction to the Telegraph article:
If Telegraph writers engaged Kehinde Andrews’ work in good faith they’d learn a lot from him. May even agree with some of his thoughts and critiques. In not engaging with his work yet expressing fury and demanding his ‘cancellation’, they prove KA’s assertions to be accurate. https://t.co/5X9oTf7r6c
Meanwhile, global accounting firm Deloitte posted a LinkedIn message, signed by the leaders of its Israeli business, expressing “support for our fellow citizens on the home front and those on the front lines”. Dozens of employees from elsewhere in the region sought to disassociate themselves. Mutasem Dajani, chief executive of Deloitte Middle East, then condemned “needless human suffering” and highlighted support of humanitarian efforts for Palestinians.
Some commentators stressed that companies needed to be consistent — if they have made a statement on Ukraine, they should do so for Israel and Palestine, for example.
[DEI vet Bo Young] Lee disagrees. “The unfortunate thing about our world now is that something is happening every single day. This idea of consistency is fundamentally flawed . . . a company would be making a statement every single day. Make a statement when it impacts your business, you have something to say about it and you can have a meaningful impact.”
A member unit of the global network of multinational professional services firm Ernst and Young (EY) has opened a new office in the Philippines, expanding its footprint here with a second branch located in Cebu City.
Global Delivery Services (EY-GDS) said the opening of its Cebu center last Oct. 11 represented a significant scaling up of operations in the Philippines, starting with 25 individuals in 2015 and which has since grown to over 5,000 this year.
“The Philippines is a vital component of our growth strategy, and we are delighted to broaden our footprint in the country by building teams (of) extraordinary talents in and around Cebu,” EY-GDS global operations leader Mukul Pachisia said in a statement.
The live feed was suspended mid-broadcast due to the fact that the Lotto Plus 1 draw machine began selecting balls earlier than the sequence should have started.
The operator said that the recording of the draw continued but the live TV broadcast was halted as a result. In a statement, the National Lottery that the issue did not affect the integrity of the draw.
“The National Lottery would like to inform its players that there was a minor technical issue with tonight’s Lotto draw. However, there is no issue with either the integrity of the draw or the numbers drawn,” the statement reads.
As is standard procedure, when a technical event occurs, the recording of the draw continues but the live tv broadcast is halted.
“This is in order to protect the integrity of the draw and is in line with our approved game rules and processes, all of which are and were independently observed by KPMG.”
PwC Australia’s Kristin Stubbins, who has had to say “I’m sorry” nonstop since she became acting CEO in May, is leaving the firm. No one can blame her.
Ms Stubbins held the acting CEO position for three months, and in that time she had to repeatedly apologise for the scandal, move on a number of partners, commission reports into what went wrong and organise the fire sale of the firm’s public sector consulting arm.
In June, it was announced that she would be replaced by UK partner Kevin Burrowes, who was parachuted into the CEO role after PwC global took effective control of the local firm in response to the scandal.
Ms Stubbins will leave at the end of January. She is the firm’s most senior auditor, a former managing partner of its all-important assurance division and the signing partner of the flagship Macquarie Bank audit.
Marco Perez, who used to be accounting manager at a storage and modular space company and read other people’s emails as a fun hobby, is pleading guilty to SEC charges of insider trading. Current article from Pasadena Now, September 27 SEC complaint.
He also performed assignments for the company’s chairman, including printing out the chairman’s emails.
As a result, Perez had access to material information belonging to General Finance, including offers to buy the company, before the information was released to the investing public, the DOJ said.
In violation of his fiduciary duties to General Finance and its shareholders, and in violation of company policy against insider trading, in March and April of 2021, Perez purchased a total of 66,585 shares of General Finance stock that he was later able to sell for a total of $1.26 million, according to prosecutors.
Perez purchased the General Finance stock after reading confidential emails sent to the company’s chairman in early 2021 that concerned the pending sale of General Finance for a price in the range of $19 to $20 per share. Perez paid prices between $10 and $12 for the 66,585 shares he bought, the DOJ stated.
Gibson Dunn covers the following topics in their Q3 update for accounting firms. Swing on over to peruse the PDF if any of them are of interest.
PCAOB Staff Report Finds 40 Percent of Audits Have Part I.A Deficiencies
SEC Chief Accountant Issues Statements on Crypto Assurance Work and Risk Assessment
Second Circuit Decertifies Investor Class in Long-Running Dispute
UK Supreme Court Strikes Down Litigation Funding
NYSE and Nasdaq Listing Standards on Clawbacks Take Effect
New York DFS Proposes Second Amendment to Cybersecurity Regulation
California Broadens Restrictions on Employee Non-Competes
California Passes Legislation Establishing Climate-Related Reporting Requirements
Alright that’s enough of that. Be well and give me a shout if you see anything interesting (“interesting” is open to interpretation given our niche, feel free to take generous liberties with the definition).
GT seeks limit on Big Four market share [Accountancy Age]
“Grant Thornton is calling for direct regulatory intervention in the audit market that would limit the number audits a firm could hold among public companies.
The call comes in a submission to the House of Lords economic affairs committee which is conducting an inquiry into the dominance of the Big Four firms and constitutes the most emphatic public demand yet for regulators to directly intervene in the market.
Among the other proposals made by Grant Thornton are a code of conduct for investors urging them to promote the use of auditors outside the Big Four. Grant Thornton also wants to see so called restrictive covenants – clauses placed by banks in credit agreements insisting that only Big Four firms be used on an audit.”
How Not to Create New Jobs [TaxVox]
“I suppose the Senate’s debate today may serve some useful purpose as a show vote. Endangered Democrats can go home and argue that while they care deeply about American jobs, Republicans–who voted en masse to kill the bill–do not. But partisan politics aside, this is a classic example why Congress should not be allowed anywhere near tax policy during election season.”
Mark-to-market plan could be modified: FASB member [Reuters]
“Strong opposition to a controversial proposal to expand fair value accounting could sway rulemakers to modify the plan, a member of the U.S. accounting rule-making board said on Tuesday.
The proposal by the Financial Accounting Standards Board calls for loans and other financial assets to be valued based on what they would fetch in the market, known as mark-to-market, or fair value. That change is intended to give investors a clearer picture of assets held on banks’ books.”
The banking industry has opposed the measure, saying it does not make sense to assign market prices to loans that will never be sold.
‘Thus far, I think the count is up to about 1,500 or so comment letters,’ said Lawrence Smith, a board member of FASB, which sets U.S. accounting rules. ‘I think I’ve read one that supports what we propose.’
Smith added that board members will probably be influenced by the opposition. ‘If I were a betting person, I would bet on some type of hybrid model being adopted,’ he said.”
BP to Create New Safety Division in Wake of Spill [NYT]
Now here’s an idea! ” BP will set up a new global safety division and make other changes to the way it operates as it seeks to absorb some lessons from the explosion of a oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year, the soon-to-be chief executive Robert Dudley said Wednesday.
BP said the new division would aim to improve risk management and safety, and also review how the company manages agreements with contractors. The plans were announced as Mr. Dudley prepares to take over as chief executive on Friday.”
Investors, Regulators Laid Path to ‘Flash Crash’ [WSJ]
“A report by the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on that day’s steep decline, which saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average collapse 700 points in minutes before rebounding, is expected as soon as this week. SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro has called the day’s events “clearly a market failure.”
Staff from both agencies, which provided an initial joint-account in May, continued Tuesday to negotiate how certain events would be described in the report, according to people briefed on the discussions.
One area of discussion, one person said, concerns the so-called “E-mini” futures contract, which mimics movements in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index and was a source of heavy trading that day when liquidity dried up. Part of the discussion concerns whether to disclose the number of contracts exchanged in the E-mini contract, which could show the size and impact of the trades.”
SAP to buy Sage? [AccMan]
Dennis Howlett mulls over the latest SAP/Sage rumors.
Voting on Bush Tax Cuts Divides Democrats in Congress Before Election Day [Bloomberg]
We realize it might be tough to get your head around this, “Democrats worried about defending congressional majorities are divided over voting on income taxes before Election Day. Party strategists warn they are missing an opportunity to define themselves against Republicans.
After Senate Democrats postponed action on President Barack Obama’s proposal to extend middle-class tax cuts until after the Nov. 2 election, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested members still may vote this week before leaving Washington to campaign. Two days later, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said that would be a ‘specious act’ without the chance of a Senate vote.”
College Graduates’ Top Employers [BusinessWeek]
The latest from Universum: 1) Google 2) KPMG 3) E&Y 4) PwC 5) Deloitte. It’s really not fair if you let the cool company jump in the mix.
