Going Concern

PwC Would Appreciate It if the FASB, IASB Would Cool Their Jets on the Accounting Standards

Caleb Newquist
July 8, 2010

Christ, guys! PricewaterhouseCoopers thinks it’s nice that you’re trying to turn the entire accounting world upside down since you decided the BSDs at the G-20 were serious about this June 2011 deadline.

But then you admitted that it can’t be done and it turns out they (or the SEC) don’t give a rat’s ass. For some reason, you’re still committed to getting the job done by the end of 2011 and PwC would like you take it easy.

For starters, everyone knows that the world is ending in 2012, so this is really a futile exercise. Secondly, you’re really not being rational about the whole thing. Your gusto is admirable but you’re looking like the kid that reminds the teacher to assign homework. KNOCK IT OFF:

PricewaterhouseCoopers Calls for Slowing Down Pace of Accounting Standard Setting

NEW YORK, July 8 /PRNewswire/ — PricewaterhouseCoopers, responding to the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB) ambitious agenda to complete about a dozen new accounting standards (about half of which are major projects) by the end of 2011, said the current timeline is not sufficient to produce standards that meet the boards’ high thresholds for quality.

Mike Gallagher, PwC’s U.S. National Office Leader, said, “it is of utmost importance that adequate time be given to complete an effective, thorough analysis of the accounting, business and operational impacts of the proposals.” Gallagher added, “given the boards’ missions of issuing high quality standards, we believe the proposed timeline will need to be further extended to allow for appropriate due process.”

In a Point of View article released today, PwC said it fully supports an aggressive timeline and the goal of attaining a single set of high quality global standards. Yet, the firm also expressed significant concern that the current pace of standard setting does not provide enough time for companies to fully analyze the proposals and respond comprehensively. In the article, the firm’s leadership called upon standard setters to “reevaluate the current timeline and set more reasonable expectations.”

Explaining the firm’s concern about the ambitious timelines, Gallagher pointed out that “even the largest of companies won’t have the resource bandwidth to properly evaluate and respond to so many complex standards in such a limited period of time.”

The projects underway by the FASB and IASB to improve both U.S. generally accepted accounting principles and international financial reporting standards are part of a wider goal to converge U.S. and international standards in key areas.

EY
PCAOB

PCAOB Report States That There Was a Fair Amount of Failing Going on at Ernst & Young

Caleb Newquist
July 8, 2010

The PCAOB has issued its annual report on Ernst & Young having given the firm the third degree at its national office and 30 of its 80 U.S. offices. It inspected 58 audits performed by the firm but exactly who is, of course, a big secret (unless you tell us).

There were five “Issuers” that were listed in the report and some form of the word “fail” was used 25 times (that includes the footnotes).

[Issuer A] The Firm failed to adequately test the issuer’s loan loss reserves related to certain loans held for investment. Specifically, the Firm failed to reconcile certain values used in the issuer’s models with industry data, failed to test the recovery rates used in the issuerfailed to test the qualitative components of the reserves.

Damn those loan loss reserves!

[Issuer C] The Firm failed to perform sufficient procedures to test the issuer’s allowance for loan losses (“ALL”). The issuer determined the general portion of its ALL estimate, which represented a significant portion of the ALL, using certain factors such as loan grades. Data for this calculation were obtained from information technology systems that reside at a third-party service organization. The Firm relied on these systems, but it failed to test the information-technology general controls (“ITGCs”) over certain of these systems, and it failed to test certain of the application controls over these systems. Further, the Firm’s testing of the controls over the assignment and monitoring of loan grades was insufficient, as the Firm failed to assess the competence of the individuals performing the control on which it relied.

This loan thing appears to be a trend…

[Issuer D] The Firm failed to sufficiently test the costing of work-in-process and finished goods inventory. Specifically, the Firm’s tests of controls over the costing of such inventory were limited to verifying that management reviewed and approved the cost allocation factors, without evaluating the review process that provided the basis for management’s approval.

Hopefully that doesn’t blow back on an A1.

Anyway, you get the picture. The whole report is below for your reading pleasure. E&Y’s got its $0.02 in, however it was short and was mostly concerned about the firm’s right to keep its response to Part II (the non-public part)…non-public:

We are enclosing our response letter to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board regarding Part I of the draft Report on 2009 Inspection of Ernst & Young LLP (the “Report”). We also are enclosing our initial response to Part II of the draft Report.

We note that Section 104(g)(2) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires that “no portions of the inspection report that deal with criticisms of or potential defects in the quality control systems of the firm under inspection shall be made public if those criticisms or defects are addressed by the firm, to the satisfaction of the Board, not later than 12 months after the date of the inspection report.” Based on this statutory provision, we understand that our comments on Part ii will be kept non-public as long as Part ii of the Report itself is non-public.

In addition, we are requesting confidential treatment of this transmittal letter.

So this doesn’t mean much other than E&Y would prefer that no one know how it managed to tell the PCAOB to fuck right off as nicely as it could.

If you had the pleasure of being on one of these 58 engagements, we’d love to hear about your experience.

2010 Ernst Young LLP US

News

Russian Spy Who Attended CFO Conference Was That Annoying Person You Can’t Shake at Such Events

Caleb Newquist
July 8, 2010

Donald Howard Heathfield is “Defendant #4” of the eleven alleged Russian spies and it turns out that he was playing pretty true to the part of a go-getter executive looking to network his ass off.

CFO reports that “prodigious networker” Heathfield attended the CFO Rising Conference that was held in Orlando in March and he was well remembered by some of the other attendees. Not only for his persistence (we’re imagining really aggressive handshakes, name tag prominently placed, business cards in a holster) but for his just plain weirdness and his ginormous business card:

“I met him early on in the conference, and he was very persistent in trying to reengage,” recalls John Kahn, CFO of a private-equity-backed portfolio company. “I didn’t reengage with him. He just seemed slightly strange.” Kahn still has Heathfield’s business card, which folds out to twice the size of a normal business card and contains a somewhat inscrutable description of the company’s mission: “Future Map gives leaders a synthetic ‘big picture’ of anticipated future. Future Map helps building proactive collaborative leadership cultures.”

Frankly, the “inscrutable description” doesn’t sound that much different from all the other hustlers out there but whatever. Supposedly this was extra, extra inscrutable, even by business conference standards. Anyhoo, another attendee just found DHH to be flat out annoying:

He started talking to me, and I couldn’t shake him,” says Frank Quigley, CEO of CFO Publishing, who remembers Heathfield approaching him in a hallway outside the meeting rooms and seeking introductions to specific conference speakers and attendees. “There was no doubt in my mind when I saw his photo that I recalled the encounter and the persistence of it, and the vagueness of who he was.”

Obviously Mr Quigley did not have any pre-arranged signals to get him out of bad convos. HUGE MISTAKE.

Back to our Russian friend – if you visit his LinkedIn page you’ll see that he keeps it similarly inscrutable with a past position being, “Partner at Global Partners, Inc.” and specializing in “Comprehensive management of Risks and Uncertainties, Anticipatory Leadership, Building of Future Scenarios, Development and Execution of Future Strategies, Capture of Strategic Opportunities, Global Account Management.”

Considering his use of buzzwords, we’re not surprised at all that he was able to blend in so well. No word on the prevalence of acronyms but despite what people are saying, he was more like them then they could possibly even realized.

Spies Like…Us? [CFO]

Accounting News Roundup: Quasi-Exodus at H&R Block?; National Taxpayer Advocate Issues Report That Congress Won’t Read; SEC Might Want to Take a Closer Look at Amedisys | 07.08.10

Caleb Newquist
July 8, 2010

H&R Block names Alan Bennett as CEO [AP]
This all came about since Russ Smyth resigned, made official by a two sentence 8-K filing, “On June 30, 2010, Russell P. Smyth provided H&R Block, Inc. (the “Company”) with notice of his resignation as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, and as a director of the Company. The effective date of Mr. Smyth’s resignation from these positions is August 29, 2010, unless the Board of Directors selects an earlier date.”

It seems like there’s a quasi-exodus in the C-Suite at HRB as General Counsned on Friday and the company is still on the hunt for a CFO after Becky Shulman left in April.

Yahoo CFO Aims to End Buy-High, Sell-Low Record on Deals [Bloomberg]
Tim Morse told Bloomberg that the company has been doing things completely bassackwards, “You’ve seen our track record on M&A with buying really high and selling pretty low,” Morse said in an interview. “We’ve got to be careful.”

Some examples of doing things exactly wrong include, “Yahoo, the second-biggest U.S. search engine, agreed to sell its HotJobs website for $225 million in February after paying about $436 million for it in 2002. In January, Yahoo sold Zimbra, an e-mail and collaboration unit, netting $100 million. Yahoo bought it in 2007 for $350 million.”

Auditors could face grillings from analysts [Accountancy Age]
“Steve Maslin, chair of the partnership oversight board at Grant Thornton, envisages an expanded audit role which may involve greater face-to-face time with stakeholders, including question and answer sessions at annual general meetings.

‘Many investors believe there is valuable information that gets discussed by the auditors with management and audit committees to which investors do not have access – and I think they are right,’ he said.”

Legg Mason CFO resigns [Baltimore Sun]
Get your resumé in now.

FEI Announces 2010 Hall of Fame Inductees [FEI Financial Reporting Blog]
Come on down! “FEI’s 2010 Hall of Fame inductees: Karl M. von der Heyden, former Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Financial Officer of PepsiCo, Inc., and Ulyesse J. LeGrange, retired Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of ExxonMobil Corporation’s U.S. Oil and Gas Operations.”

National Taxpayer Advocate Submits Mid-Year Report to Congress [IRS]
Nina Olson’s mid-year report to Congress has plenty to wade through so that means none of the members will likely read it. Fortunately the IRS narrowed the three biggies (Taxpayer Services, New Business and Tax-Exempt Organization Reporting Requirements, IRS Collection Practices) into a much more consumable version.

Open Letter to the [SEC]: Investigate Troubling Issues at Amedisys Missed by Wall Street Journal [White Collar Fraud]
In Sam Antar’s latest WTFU letter to the SEC, he details some issues at Amedisys which weren’t covered in the Journal‘s report from back in April. Since we are into the whole brevity thing, we won’t get into the number crunching here but things look fishy. Plus there’s this:

On September 3, 2009, Amedisys President and COO Larry Graham and Alice Ann Schwartz, its chief information officer, suddenly resigned from the company. Amedisys provided no reason for their resignations and simply said that the two execs “are leaving the company to pursue other interests.”

In my experience, sudden, unexpected executive departures are often a sign of problems beneath the surface. And while it could be entirely coincidental, the trends at Amedisys appear to be consistent with my experience.

But Sam doesn’t believe in coincidences.

Quote of the Day

The AICPA Is Jumping on This Audit Committee Trend

Caleb Newquist
July 8, 2010

“The audit committee is essentially its organization’s financial conscience. The responsibilities have grown demonstrably, and committee members need appropriate guidance to carry out their essential charge. That’s the AICPA’s goal for its first audit committee forum.”

~ Carol Scott, AICPA vice president for business, industry and government thinks it’s about time we got down to business.

CFOs

A Couple of Suggestions for NPR’s New CFO

Caleb Newquist
July 8, 2010

NPR has a new CFO and if you’re not a public radio junkie, you might not give a shit less. For those of you that can’t function without hearing the soothing voices brought to you courtesy of your very own tax dollars, then this is big news.

Deborah Cowan is joining NPR from Radio One where she was SVP of finance. She also did stints at IBM and Coopers & Lybrand (look it up, young people).

Not sure if Ms Cowan will be able to weigh in on editorial matters but we humbly suggest more of the following:

Oh and if you could encourage your boss to reverse a particular asinine policy, that’d be great. Good luck in the new gig.

Career Center

Job of the Day: Al Qaeda Needs an Accountant

Caleb Newquist
July 8, 2010

Serious applicants only please.

A longtime associate of Usama bin Laden on Wednesday pleaded guilty at Guantanamo Bay to terror charges of conspiracy and material support, marking the first-ever conviction under the military commission system resurrected by President Obama.

[…]

Al Qosi was accused of supporting terrorism by serving on a Taliban mortar crew and occasionally as bin Laden’s bodyguard. While not a household name, it is alleged that al Qosi, who is Sudanese, knew bin Laden from his days in Sudan in the early ’90s and ultimately followed the Al Qaeda leader to Afghanistan.

Court documents claim that he served in a number of roles for his longtime friend — from driver to accountant to cook in the kitchen at bin Laden’s Afghanistan compound before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Perhaps most importantly, he allegedly facilitated bin Laden’s escape from Tora Bora in late 2001.

Big shoes to fill no doubt but you’ll probably clean their books up lickity. Benefits allegedly include weapons training, bomb making and lots and lots of virgins (after death of course).

Bin Laden Aide Pleads Guilty in First Terror Conviction Under Obama Commissions [Fox News]

Small Business

Are Big Banks Really Helping Small Business?

GoingConcern
July 7, 2010

This story is republished from CFOZone, where you’ll find news, analysis and professional networking tools for finance executives.

In the latest move by a big bank to make itself into a friend to small business, Chase recently announced a program to offer incentives to small companies for hiring. But the actual benefit to most small businesses is hard to see.

Specifically, the bank will lower its interest rate on new lines of credit by 0.5 percentage points for each new hire, up to three employees, for the life of the loan. The offer is available to business owners who are approved for a line of credit of up to $250,000 or existing business customers who increase their line of credit by at least $10,000. And if you open a business checking account, you get an additional half percent discount on your loan rate.

A typical interest rate on a line of credit is 6 percent. According to the bank, if you choose the whole ball of wax – take the discount for three hires and open a checking account – you’ll lower that to 4 percent. And counting the discount for a new checking account, small business owners can save about $4,000 over three years on an outstanding balance of about $65,000.

Trouble is, that’s an offer most businesses are likely to refuse. Those already planning to hire and that are in good health might take advantage of the deal. In fact, they’d be silly not to. But the offer is hardly enough to inspire a business to hire if it wasn’t going to do so already.

What the offer might accomplish is to help Chase seem like a nice institution, not the greedy enterprise that helped bring down the economy. And it’s hardly the only attempt by Chase, or other banks, to do something to lift their image, something I’ve written about before. For example, last year, Chase unveiled plans to increasing lending to small businesses by $4 billion to a total of $10 billion. Bank of America recently said it would buy more from small businesses. In May, Citicorp launched a $200 million fund to boost small-business lending in low-income communities. And of course, last year, Goldman Sachs announced its own $500 million small-business fund.

It’s also a way to attract healthy businesses at a time when loan demand is down.

So a win-win for Chase. Not so much for small businesses.

Announcements

Thanks to This Week’s Advertisers

GoingConcern
July 7, 2010

A quick word of thanks to this week’s advertisers on Going Concern:

• Sunshine Suites

• Wiley

If you’re interested in advertising on Going Concern, email us at advertising@breakingmedia.com.

Thanks!

BDO Does Some Ribbon Cutting, Opens Raleigh, NC Office

Caleb Newquist
July 7, 2010

More good news out of B to the D to the O as the firm announced today that it is opening an office in Raleigh, North Carolina (full press release after the jump). This will be the 39th office in the U.S. and fourth in North Carolina. The firm also has eight affiliate offices in the state.

In the process, the firm managed to pick up former Ernst & Young audit partner Michael Dannar (a refugee perhaps?).

The good times at BDO have been aplenty lately as the firm just admitted five partners on July 1 and was given a mulligan on the Banco Espirito lawsuit. Oh and don’t forget that the firm fka BDO Seidman is celebrating its 100th birthday all year.

No word if there will be cake or freakishly large scissors at the celebration but nevertheless, it’s good to see some expansion in the Tar Heel state for a change.

BDO USA, LLP EXPANDS NORTH CAROLINA PRESENCE WITH NEW RALEIGH OFFICE

Chicago, IL – BDO USA, LLP, one of the nation’s leading professional service organizations, has announced an expansion of it’s presence in North Carolina with the addition of a new office in Raleigh. The Chicago-based firm, which now has offices in 39 cities around the country, had previously serviced clients in this market through its Charlotte practice. Pending a move to permanent office space at 5430 Wade Park Boulevard in August, the new practice, which will have approximately 15 staff, will be temporarily located at:

BDO
5410 Trinity Road, Suite 310
Raleigh, NC 27607

The Raleigh business community will now have more direct access to BDO’s full array of services which include assurance, tax, risk advisory, financial planning, business restructuring, litigation and fraud investigation services. Michael Dannar, previously with Ernst & Young, has joined the firm as a partner and will assist in serving the firm’s assurance clients in Raleigh and throughout the southeast. Mr. Dannar has significant experience working with colleges, universities and other non-profit organizations.

“We have been working with clients in Raleigh for a number of years now and the time is right for us to establish a permanent presence. This new office will enable us to better serve our clients in this growing market,” said Jack Weisbaum, CEO of BDO USA. “We are also happy to welcome Michael Danner to the partnership. His knowledge of the market will be a valuable resource to our firm.”

BDO SEIDMAN FACTS:

• BDO is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding in 1910.
• BDO represents companies ranging from Fortune 500 multinationals to closely-held private businesses.
• BDO had $620 million in revenues in 2009 (6/30/09). Over the past four fiscal years, the firm has averaged double digit growth (10.2%).
• As an independent member of BDO International Limited (the fifth largest global network of accounting firms), the firm can leverage the resources of more than 1,000 member firm offices in 115 countries around the world.

ABOUT BDO USA

BDO is the brand name for BDO USA, LLP, a U.S. professional services firm providing assurance, tax, financial advisory and consulting services to a wide range of publicly traded and privately held companies. For 100 years, BDO has provided quality service through the active involvement of experienced and committed professionals. The firm serves clients through 39 offices and more than 400 independent alliance firm locations nationwide. As an independent Member Firm of BDO International Limited, BDO serves multi-national clients through a global network of 1,138 offices in 115 countries.

BDO USA, LLP,a limited liability partnership, is the U.S. member of BDO International Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, and forms part of the international BDO network of independent member firms. BDO is the brand name for the BDO network and for each of the BDO Member Firms. For more information please visit: www.bdo.com.

KPMG

Did KPMG Plagiarize Part of Its Atlantic Yards Market Study?

Caleb Newquist
July 7, 2010

Back in the fall we told you about a market study that KPMG issued on the Atlantic Yards project.

At that time, we learned that KPMG had done some less-than stellar research on the movement of the units on Prospect Park and it got the attention of some the local blogs covering the massive development project.

Namely, the Atlantic Yards Report blog. It reported:

KPMG’s report has some very shoddy research. Consider that the report (dated August 31) claims that Richard Meier’s On Prospect Park is 75% sold. (Only rental buildings are pre-leased.)

However, the New York Times reported September 27:

While the developers say half of the building’s 99 units have been sold, the real estate Web site StreetEasy.com documents only 25 closings through public records.

AYR didn’t state it so boldly back in the fall but in a post from yesterday (as well as reports in May and June) it isn’t so nice and flat out calls the firm out for lying, “The KPMG report got very little discussion, but it contains lies–blatant, checkable lies–about condo sales.”

But wait! There’s more! We learned today from a friend of GC that not only does AYR call out KPMG for having their pants on fire, it also says that the firm got a little carried away with the copy and pasting:

I discovered when I took another look, it contains more than two pages of shameless borrowing–plagiarism that is not diminished by a vague footnote.

The entire section on New York City Market Dynamics is cribbed from The Corcoran Report(s) for Manhattan and Brooklyn for the second quarter of 2009.

Yes, there’s a footnote to the section headline that cites “The Corcoran Report–2nd Quarter 2009” as a source (click to enlarge), but there’s no indication that nearly all the text–with the slightest of changes–comes from Corcoran.

No quotation marks, no indentations, no italics.

AYR provides several examples that are ~~oddly the same~~ identical. We’ve presented a clip from KPMG’s report here:

And here’s Corcoran’s (apologies for the small type):

Like we said, this is just one example. Our messages (email, voicemail, in a bottle) to KPMG have not been returned at this time.

Nonprofits Could be Forced to Pay to Save the Postal Service

Adrienne Gonzalez
July 7, 2010

It’s difficult to find numbers that don’t contradict each other, some reports say nonprofits are doing better than expected in this uncertain economic environment while others insist it’s still rough out there, especially for organizations that rely on donations to get by. For nonprofits, it doesn’t matter how the year is going, it may soon cost more to send out those pleading donation mailers.

The Postal Regulatory Commission is looking at a 2 cent increase for first class mail, an 8% increase for periodicals (just what the doctor ordered for struggling print publications) and a 23% increase on parcels. While they have not specifically mentioned an increase in nonprofit mailer pricing, the PRC has already identified certain “underwater” mail classes, non-profit mail being one such case.

As is, authorized nonprofits get a price break of about 40% over commercial mail prices so you could see why a struggling USPS might go straight for non-profits when looking for additional revenue sources to close its $7 billion budget gap.

Overall, postal prices are expected to rise 4 – 5%, a huge jump from the legally allowed .6% the Postal Service can use to adjust for inflation. Seeing as how we supposedly haven’t experienced any inflation this year, the jump is that much more disheartening to mass mailers.

Not surprisingly, there’s a nonprofit set up to focus on postal issues around nonprofit mail and they’re all over it. Said Tony Cooper of the Washington-based Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, the USPS delivery system “is a system that’s built to handle about 300 billion pieces of mail, and they’ve got about 170 billion, and it’s set to decrease. It’s basically twice as big as it needs to be. It’s that excess capacity and costs that are creating the need in their minds to do this.” Hear that, USPS? Cut the fat before you start going after the little guys.

Adrienne Gonzalez is the founder of Jr. Deputy Accountant, a former CPA wrangler and a Going Concern contributor. You can see more of her posts here and all posts on the CPA Exam here.

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