Hitting the third group of ten on Vault’s Accounting 50, we see plenty of familiar names that would probably prefer being ranked higher but the people have spoken.
If you’ve got any news, gossip, cost saving ingenuity or anything else worthy of our pages on these firms, get in touch with at [email protected]
21. Ernst & Young LLP – New York, NY
22. KPMG LLP – New York, NY
23. Grant Thornton LLP – Chicago, IL
24. BDO Seidman LLP – Chicago, IL
25. McGladrey & Pullen LLP/RSM McGladrey Inc. – Bloomington, MN
26 LLC – Southfield, MI
27. J.H. Cohn LLP – Roseland, NJ
28. Eisner LLP – New York, NY
29. Clifton Gunderson LLP – Peoria, IL
30. Crowe Horwath LLP – Oak Brook Terrace, IL
Here’s the scoop from Vault, with the occasional comment from us.
Ernst & Young – “Quality people, quality audits, quality network”; “Grossly overwork their juniors, underpay their seniors”; “Arrogant” [Jim Turely strikes as a humble-ish guy]
KPMG – “Good international firm”; “Frat party all the time”; “Weakest of the Big 4; unwilling to take risks to change its culture” [What kind of frat? Tri-Lambs?]
Grant Thornton – “Youthful and growing”; “More powerful in some regions than others”; “Big Four wannabe; inconsistent” [And a blogging CEO!]
BDO – “Solid, respected”; “Trying too hard to be a Big Four firm”; “Numerous accounting scandals”
McGladrey – “Solid, well known”; “Known to treat individuals with disrespect; questionable management”
Plante & Moran – “Excellent national reputation—they do things right”; “Mixed reviews on training” [Twelve straight years in Fortune bitches!]
J.H. Cohn – “Relaxed,” “open-door team environment”; “Old-line regional firm currently buying clients—the finest reputation advertising dollars can buy”
Eisner – “Solid New York City/Metro New York/New Jersey player”; “More marketing than expertise”
Clifton Gunderson – “Solid regional”; “Small firm, closing offices”; “We still need stronger name recognition”
Crowe Horwath – “More caring than the Big Four”; “From January to April, [you’ll] work every weekend” (Does more caring mean free cookies? More group hugs? We need details!)
And a some recent samples from these pages:
• E&Y’s lead partner on the Emmys doesn’t get any action from groupies and the Shanghai office doesn’t care if you’re afraid of heights.
• The House of Klynveld recently got less-drastic makeover than PwC and Dick Bové thinks the Citigroup team is ‘an acceptable group of auditors.’
• One Grant Thornton office announced its Christmaskuh festivities early and Stephen Chipman encouraged employees to share the firm’s new strategy with loved ones.
• BDO opened a new office down in tobacco land.
• McGladrey rolled plenty of refreshments for their rebranding including punch that was eerily reminiscent of Jonestown and a freakishly large cake that allowed execs to show off their lack of chipping skills.
• Eisner played coy on their merger with Amper Politziner & Mattia at first but then admitted that they were making sweet CPA firm love.
• A Crowe Horwath audit partner pleaded ignorance on tax issues for his banking client because, well, the tax department is on another floor.
Earlier:
Vault Accounting 50 Rankings: Digging Into The Top 10
Vault Accounting 50: Firms #11-#20 (2011)
Chuck Noski was CFO of BofA for only one year and is still a vice chairman at the bank and is probably a very competent individual but Jesus, has the Financial Accounting Foundation no sense of the reputation of this particular bank? Further, have they heard nothing about the collective reputation of banks these days? 