Going Concern

Preliminary Analytics

Preliminary Analytics | 10.19.09

Caleb Newquist
October 19, 2009

• U.S. Said to Target Wave of Insider-Trading Cases After Galleon – “Investigators developed at least one informant in the ring, who began meeting in November 2007 with agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to charging documents.” Feel free to speculate who’s next. The SEC is taking no prisoners apparently. [Bloomberg]
• Armageddon in Alabama Proves Parable for Local U.S. Governments – “One target of [citizens’] anger is Larry P. Langford, who was the county commission’s president in 2003 and 2004 and is now mayor of Birmingham. The 61-year-old Democrat goes on trial today, charged in a November 2008 federal indictment with taking cash, Rolex watches and designer clothes in exchange for helping to steer $7.1 million in fees to an Alabama investment banker as the county refinanced its sewer debt.” [Bloomberg]
• Family Squabbles in Hyatt IPO – Family squabbles may “disrupt our business” according to the latest SEC filings. Nothing like family spite to disrupt the expansion of the fortune. [WSJ]
• CME in informal talks to take over CBOE: report – “Informal talks” could really mean anything including that they had the chat over prime rib buffet and lap dances. [Reuters]
• For N.B.A. Owners, Background Checks Go Deep – “The [NBA’s] investigation [of Mikhail D. Prokhorov] is expected to tap into Russian police, military, diplomatic and intelligence sources, some from the former K.G.B., as well as his partners, competitors and customers.” [DealBook]

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Review Comments

Review Comments | 10.16.09

Caleb Newquist
October 17, 2009

• Who knew it was National Bosses Day? ATL did. Happy day to all the chiefs out there!
• IRS rolls out 2010 tax rates [Denver Business Journal]
• “I’ll be like Martha ……. Stewart” – FBI cracks alleged Rajaratnam ring – Heads are going to roll on this one. Check out DB’s coverage as well. [FT Alphaville]
• Actor Nicolas Cage sues business manager Samuel Levin for $20M claiming ‘financial ruin’ – It’s the American way. [NYDN]
• Obama Administration Pushes Back at Bank Lobbying on Regulation – “The issue, according to administration officials, is the industry is generally on sound footing because of government help and lobbying against Obama’s regulatory plans goes against the nation’s long-term interest.” [Bloomberg]

Mavericks Need Not Apply at Ernst & Young

Caleb Newquist
October 17, 2009

FINS has a short chat with E&Y’s Director of Experienced Recruiting, Maureen Kelleher, discussing, well, jobs at E&Y.
Highlights that you might ~~enjoy~~ find interesting:
Getting ahead: “It’s about being a team player — to take leadership responsibility but to not be a maverick.”
Salaries: “We’re staying the course, as it were. We have extremely competitive salaries. We reward for performance. Granted, our firm is not immune to the economy, so the proportion of all that is probably not as great as it has been in the past.”
Layoffs: “We’ve been watching our costs, and that’s about as much as I’ll say about that.”
“Staying the course” may simply be another way of saying, “It’s fair“. Also, the “watching costs” response? We feel Ms. Kelleher could have answered better here but maybe Big 4 rhetoric isn’t our strong suit.
Check out the whole interview over at FINS, and feel free to discuss your non-mavericky firm in the comments.
Maureen Kelleher: Ernst & Young [FINS]

KPMG

KPMG Shake-up Continues

Caleb Newquist
October 17, 2009

More ~~pool boy~~ shake-up news out of the Radio Station as both the Chicago and the DC offices are welcoming new office managing partners, according to our sources.
So by our count that makes four new OMPs along with two area managing partners being moved into the client-facing roles.
Discuss details on any of these moves in the comments and if you have restructuring details, pass them along.

Video

Ed Nusbaum Doesn’t Have to Sneak Out the Back Door Anymore

Caleb Newquist
October 17, 2009

Not only that, he used to FEEL GUILTY about leaving early to coach his daughters’ softball games. Oh Eddie, we realize that guilt is a bitch. Personally, whenever we felt guilty about leaving the office early, we’d slap the shit out of ourselves to the point of submission. That made us realize that feeling guilty is for sissies. Glad to hear you beat the guilt too.
Some other highlights from part two of SEVEN part interview*:
• Ed says, “all the firms are great” and his head doesn’t explode. Amazing.
• He also says work/life balance is not just words on a piece of paper.
• GT is very proud of “the Grid”, their version of Facebook. Which will fail miserably now that they’ve lifted the veil on your status updates.
• Ed loves his iPod. Just like you!
• Stephen Chipman put us to sleep in about half a nanosecond.

Discuss, criticize, debunk, or air high-five the GT honchos in the comments.
*Yes, its over a week old and yes, we skipped part one but it was really boring, so piss off.

Uncategorized

‘Your Regular Conspiratorial Conversations May Resume Tomorrow’

Caleb Newquist
October 16, 2009

From one of the usual suspects earlier this week:

DATE: October 14, 2009
TO: All Personnel, Washington, DC office
FROM: [Redacted]
SUBJECT: Outside visitors in the DC Office- October 14.
We have visitors in the DC office tomorrow October 14th in the 6th floor main conference room from 8am – 4:30pm which include senior partners and government officials from various agencies. Please be mindful of your conversations in and around the office.
Thank you.

So, Ixnay on the Project Dark Wing talk.

The JDA

Lloyd Blankfein Does Fair Value

Adrienne Gonzalez
October 16, 2009

Editor’s Note: Want more JDA? You can see all of her posts for GC here, her blog here and stalk her on Twitter.
It’s official, I’m sick of hearing “experts” weigh in on fair value. After my anti-PCAOB rant earlier this week, I thought I’d heard all there was in terms of the fair value argument.
Leave it to Goldman Sachs’s fearless leader to pull this little rabbit out of his hat and shock the shit out of me. In a Financial Times op-ed earlier this week, Blankfein doesn’t directly toot Goldman’s horn, though anyone who knows the lotion in a sock trick might recognize this as a blatant jerk-off.

For a man whose institution lurks in the cesspools, erm, dark pools, Blankfein is awfully incredulous as he criticizes both regulators and institutions for slacking on their valuations. GS calculates the fair value of their positions daily? Christ, no wonder they’re making buckets of cash.
FT:

It is not enough even that all exposures be identified. An institution’s assets must also be valued at their fair market value – the price at which willing buyers and sellers transact – not at the (frequently irrelevant) historic value. Some argue that fair value accounting exacerbated the credit crisis. I see it differently. If institutions had been required to recognise [British sic] their exposures promptly and value them appropriately, they would have been likely to curtail the worst risks. Instead, positions were not monitored, so changes in value were often ignored until losses grew to a point when solvency became an issue.
At Goldman Sachs, we calculate the fair value of our positions every day, because we would not know how to assess or manage risk if market prices were not reflected on our books. This approach provides an essential early warning system that is critical for risk managers and regulators.

FT’s own John Gapper even gets in on the Goldman fapfapfap, defending their practices as not exactly illegal, just really, really clever.

Its run of success since its 1999 initial public offering has not been based on “pump and dump” broking but on sticking obstinately to the institutional, less-regulated elite end of the market.
One rival Wall Street executive describes Goldman (with rueful admiration) as “a bunch of clever thugs”. He means that Goldman has been tough about seizing profitable opportunities even if that involves, for example, bidding for an asset against a former client.
Whatever Goldman is doing to make money, it works.

Crack dealers and prostitutes also make a lot of money but that doesn’t make it right. Just sayin.

Career Center

Job of the Week: Now That the Tax Deadline Has Passed, the Job Search Begins

Caleb Newquist
October 16, 2009

hire me2.jpg Tax professionals, now that you’ve managed to make it through yet another tax year with totally flipping out, it’s time for the annual ritual of working up the nerve to find a different job.
Good money says that most of you will look for about two hours over the next week and then, next thing you know, it’s January and you’re doomed for another 10 months.
Our attempt to give you a little push after the jump.

Company: CME Group
Location: Chicago
Title: Corporate Tax Manager
Description: This role is “hands on”, entailing day-to-day management and direct responsibility of several areas of the tax function. It will work crossfunctionally with a wide group, including staff, customers, vendors, and outside consultants. As such, the ability to effectively communicate tax technical terms to a nontax audience is very important. This position also requires the ability to work independently as well as the ability to manage over long distances.
Responsibilities:
• Compliance: Work with the Director, Tax, Manager, Tax, and outside service providers on federal and state income tax filings for CME Group. Research issues related to the preparation of nonincome and income tax returns.
• Audit defense: Work with Director, Tax on strategy and tactics. Research audit issues and respond to auditor questions.
• Tax research: Assist Director, Tax in identifying tax minimization opportunities. Research a variety of issues across a broad range of taxes, including transactional and project issues. Demonstrate the ability to communicate findings in written and verbal form to a wide range of internal and external customers, most of whom are not tax fluent.
• Income tax accounting (financial reporting): Work with Director and Manager, Tax on quarterly and yearend tax provisions for CME Group. Will also work with the Director and Manager to improve process and output.
See the full description at the GC Career Center and check out all the other great jobs at the main page.

E&Y’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award Just Got a Little More Prestigious

Caleb Newquist
October 16, 2009

From what we can tell, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award is a BFD. If the other Big 4 have their own versions of this award, we sure haven’t heard of them.
And even if Deloitte were to start handing out the Uncle Dangle Vigilante of the Year award, it would pale in comparison to the EYEY because, now, a past winner is going to be on The Real Housewives of New York City.
Jennifer Gilbert won her EYEY in 1998 for her business, Save the Date, “A dedicated force of event planners who are in tune with the constantly evolving world of corporate events.” She’s even in the EYEY Hall of Fame. Jesus, this thing has a HoF?
J Dawg has to be bursting over this. Shamelessly up on his desk fist pumping, Tiger Woods style. A soon-to-be reality TV star that, God willing, will name drop E&Y every chance she gets on cable would be the best thing that ever happened to the firm. Sorry, NASCAR HoF.
The Real Housewives of New York Adds a Second New Non-Housewife [Gawker]

Announcements

Survey Says…

Caleb Newquist
October 16, 2009

Thanks again to everyone for humoring us and taking our survey. Some of the highlights:
• 76% of the respondents work in public accounting.
• 41% of the respondents work for a company with more than 100,000 employees.
• 44% of the respondents describe themselves as “auditors”, 22% describe themselves as “tax professionals”. Some of the “other” responses include: marketing, attorney, financial modeler, teacher, engineer, professor, and of course, unemployed.
• Nearly 84% of the respondents are CPAs, 14% have a JD (with a handful of LLMs), along with a few CIAs, CFEs, CMAs, and one CFA but no CVAs. “Other” responses include: CISA, CISSP, CGFM, FRM, CLU, and CPCU.
• 47% of the respondents answered they work in the “accounting industry”, 13% in “banking/finance”. 19% responded “other” including: publishing, oil & gas, construction, real estate, forensic and litigation consulting, federal consulting, entertainment, law, and education.
Some of the comments and suggestions we received:

• I think you should speculate more on rumors. Add some fuel to the flame. but don’t go overboard and scare everyone.
• More professionalism. the foolishness of some stories is great and well taken as a break from work, but i am interested in hearing more about the industry and the dirt accompanying layoffs.
• ATL writers know how to be witty without being juvenile. This site, not so much.
• Not as snarky/funny as, say, above the law, but accountants just aren’t (as) interesting (as almost anything that’s not an accountant).
• Stop being so negative. I know the Big 4 aren’t perfect but the constant bad mouthing is out of place on a website devoted to them.
• More focus on the big 4.
• Suggestions: It would be interesting to see posts about sexual harrassment stories and stories about times our firms have asked/encouraged us to do illegal things…
• Maybe there are too many articles?
• Please have more posts per day and more information “after the jump”
• Language formality will improve overall credibility.
• I heart Caleb and Pomeranians.
So based on some of these responses, we will try to do the following: post more, post less, avoid dick and fart jokes (or maybe just grow up), find out if ATL does workshops, and get a Pom. Got it.
Seriously, thank you for all your feedback and suggestions. We also need you to keep sending us ideas and tips. In fact, it’s imperative that you do so, in order for us to inform you about all rumors, gossip, and chicanery going out their in the bean counter universe.
Here’s where we make like your performance counselor and ask you to double your efforts, step it up, or whatever the hell it is they say to you. Let’s take it to next the level, people. Ugh, we just managed to creep ourselves out with that…
Thanks again!

Preliminary Analytics

Preliminary Analytics | 10.16.09

Caleb Newquist
October 16, 2009

• SEC, CFTC Mull Joint Enforcement Squad: Sources – “U.S. securities and futures regulators are considering a joint enforcement squad to investigate and root out fraud in the markets, two sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday.” All together now: FRAUD SQUAD. [Reuters via NYT]
• Suspicions Arise After Balloon Boy Found Safe – We’re saturated by the coverage already. [NPR]
• Obama wins first financial reform victory in months – Derivatives are no match for a debatable Nobel Peace Prize recipient. [Reuters]
• Justice Agency Resists Music Merger – “The Ticketmaster-Live Nation deal is widely regarded as a bellwether of the department’s attitude toward such potential deals as Comcast Corp.’s proposal to take a majority stake in General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal. Like the proposed Ticketmaster-Live Nation alliance, a Comcast-NBC deal would represent ‘vertical integration,’ in which several links in the chain between producer and consumer are controlled by a single entity.” [WSJ]
• On the Calendar: What Every Auditor Should Know About Litigation – Jim Peterson will be at Baruch College on Dec. 2 for Corporate Integrity’s 4th Annual Audit Conference, “Ensuring Integrity.” Check it out. [Re: The Balance]

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Remote Tax Manager

Remote Tax Advisor, CPA Firm