Carmine Di Sibio is on his way out of EY but that doesn’t mean he’s retiring to a cabin in the woods. PayPal announced yesterday its Board of Directors intends to appoint him to the Board as an independent director, effective July 1, 2024.
“We are very pleased about the planned addition of Carmine to our Board given his demonstrated record of championing innovation, extensive experience advising regulated financial companies, and keen understanding of what it takes for global companies to succeed,” said Alex Chriss, President and CEO, PayPal. “If appointed, Carmine will be helpful in sharing his expertise in driving transformation and profitable growth in markets around the world to help us revolutionize commerce globally.”
We implore you, just one time can you use actual language human beings use in these press releases? Pretty please?
Charlie Gasparino is on E&Y like stink on a monkey this week. After reporting yesterday that the SEC may eventually get around to charging Dick Fuld and/or Ernst & Young for the accounting hijinks at Lehman Brothers, CG is now reporting that the PCAOB is asking all kinds of questions that E&Y would rather not answer.
Not exactly great news from CG so we emailed E&Y spokesman Charlie Perkins to see what’s what. He declined to comment and said the firm would not be releasing a statement related to this report.
We also called up the PCAOB to get their take and spoke with Colleen Brennan, Deputy of Director of Public Affairs, who said that the Board is prohibited from discussing these matters and provided us with the details:
The PCAOB cannot comment on whether it is investigating a particular registered accounting firm or a particular public company audit by a firm. The Board, however, takes all allegations of improper professional conduct by a registered public accounting firm seriously and considers all information relating to such allegations.
PCAOB investigations and contested contested disciplinary proceedings are confidential under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The PCAOB’s inventory of enforcement matters includes audits of all sizes and varying complexity, including matters related to audits by large firms for issuer audit clients involved in the financial crisis.
So no one is talking. Fine, we’ll just have to take Charlie at his word. What we do know is that if the Board does decide to lay the smackdown on E&Y, they’re going to tell the entire universe about it via its “Disciplinary Orders,” and as CG notes in his report, if the PCAOB does bring an action against E&Y it will be the highest profile enforcement action in its short history. Not exactly a BusinessWeek list.
Not sure how we missed this story but thanks to the random commenter who brought it to our attention. New KPMG Global Chairman Michael Andrew was recently interviewed by The Australian and it sounds like KPMG had a pretty kickass fiscal 2011.
We’re still waiting for the official revenue numbers (I’m guessing they’ll be out next week) but Drew kinda spilled the beans already:
New KPMG global chairman Michael Andrew revealed to The Weekend Australian yesterday that the company had recorded a 10.1 per cent increase in revenue in the past financial year, to $22.7 billion. The numbers are due to be released officially later this month.
“If we had not had the Japanese earthquake, I suspect we would have gone past Ernst & Young. Japan is a good market for us. We had really good growth in the Americas and really good growth in tax,” he said yesterday.
FUCKING JAPAN AND YOUR EPIC NATURAL DISASTER! You just cost one of the premier professional services firms on EARTH the chance to leave a rival in the dust. Since there was enormous death and destruction, I guess everyone at the firm will let this go but they’re trying really hard not to throw out some pro forma numbers just for the sake of argument. ANYWAY, for those of you scoring at home, the $22.7 bil puts the House of Klynveld slightly behind E&Y who racked up $22.9 billion for FY ’11. It will also make for the second straight year of a bumper crop of Omaha Steaks for the employees at the firm.
But despite earthquakes and actual hard numbers, Mike is calling it like he sees it:
“We are basically equal No 3. There is still a big gap to PwC and Deloitte, which have been buying large consulting practices in the systems implementation area.”
In other words, if all things were equal, KPMG would probably be the largest firm. They’re just keeping their heads about it.
“We’re adding Carmine to the board. It’s gonna be lit.”