Tag: BDO

Jeremy Newman: See? I Told You That There Were ‘Big 4 Only’ Clauses

BDO Global CEO — and infrequent blogger — Jeremy Newman would like everyone to know that he wasn’t dreaming when he stated that some financing agreements included “Big 4 only” clauses.

Apparently Newman was thought to be a little Patrick Byrne-ish on this particular point:

These are views that I have been expressing for some years, although many have questioned the prevalence of such clauses and indeed some have sought to deny their existence.

It was comforting therefore for me to read in the report published by the UK’s Financial Reporting Council in October 2009 entitled ‘Choice in the UK Audit Market’ that reference was made to restrictions in loan covenants. The report from the FRC noted:

‘..it is too early to determine how widespread such obligations are; however, the FRC continues to receive examples of banks imposing loan covenants with ‘Big 4 only’ clauses, including one which imposed a higher rate of interest if the borrowing company chose a non-Big 4 auditor.’

Surely there is now sufficient evidence to recognise that such clauses are a potential constraint on choice in the market place and regulators should be urged to ban them.

So despite the lack of evidence that these obligations are widespread, this remains a matter of “urgency,” according to Newman. There are examples, people. That should be enough for you. The man is trying to build a Global 6 firm after all. Kindly throw in a little additional bank regulation to help him out.

BDO’s UK Managing Partner Has a Strange Definition of ‘Solid’

Accountancy Age:

BDO’s managing partner Simon Michaels is emphatic. Fee income might be down 5% and profits down too, but underlying performance has been “solid”.
“When you look across the international networks, and across domestic firms, that is a pretty solid performance. Our national turnover has seen a modest contraction over the past year but that is purely as a result of lower levels of transactional and other one-off assignments.”

Plus there’s this: “In the end the firm made 10% of partners redundant [i.e. laid off] and around 8% of the UK workforce.”
Still going with solid?

BDO May Be Taking a Crack at This ‘Global 6’ Thing

BDO is done messing around. Having watched Grant Thornton fail miserably at trying to get the bean counter universe to embrace “Global 6 Accounting Organization”, the firm, with the help of global CEO Jeremy Newman’s blog, are stepping it up a notch.
According to Newman’s post for today and Accountancy Age, all BDO firms are now operating under the name ‘BDO’ rather than, for example, ‘BDO Seidman’ for the U.S. firm and ‘BDO Stoy Howard’ in the UK.
The reason for the name change, according to the one managing partner:
Continued, after the jump

Simon Michaels, managing partner at BDO, said the move was not just about the “look and feel” of the brand but was aimed at “significantly increasing our market share”. If we present ourselves as a unified global network… then the clients experience the high level of service and that helps to drive the reputation,” he said.

See? It’s working already. A ‘managing partner at BDO’ means this guy could be anywhere. It’s a global firm, in case you’ve forgotten. And ‘increasing our market share’? Dude may not be saying ‘Global 6 Accounting Organization’ but that’s all we’re hearing.
Newman chimes in on his blog:

At the same time we will be updating the ‘look’ of our visual identity – which will hopefully be evident from this website. Nothing too dramatic – but building on the BDO heritage whilst signalling a more modern approach.

Call us unappreciative of the subtle changes for this new ‘look’ but it seems the same to us. Our speculation is that the new ‘BDO’ is striving for continuity amongst all its offices in order to saturate the market to the point that ‘Global 6 Accounting Organization’ bulldozes its way into the vernacular.
Discuss BDO’s strategy or perhaps your thoughts on ‘Global 6’ in general, in the comments.
BDO rebrand creates unified global identity [Accountancy Age]

Our Invitation to Big 4 CEO’s to Start Blogging

jnewman.jpgWe’d like to think that we encourage free and open discussion here. Everyone is welcome to join the conversation.
And by everyone, we mean if Dennis Nally, Tim Flynn et al. were to tell us in the comments how we deserved a life sentence of footing the Brooklyn phonebook because of our butchering of the English language, we’d be thrilled. Sadly, this is probably nothing more than a pipe dream.
Jeremy Newman, the CEO of BDO International, is by far the closest to fulfilling this dream. J. New, you’ll be interested to know, has his very own blog.
More, after the jump


Not surprisingly, the blog doesn’t seem to have the class or brilliant readership of other accounting/finance blogs that we know about but we give the dude credit for putting himself out there. Granted, if someone calls him a “hack loser” it probably won’t get published in the comments but you’ve got to start somewhere.
So this is our invitation to the rest of the Big 4 CEO’s and, yes, you too, Grant Thornton, to make the unprecedented leap into the blogosphere. Think of the transparency these firms would have as a result. The need for the annual survey about how these firms are such great places to work would become unnecessary because there would be constant real-time updates based on every decision made.
The best part is that, if GC happens to say something that they find offensive, unfair, blown out of proportion, or just plain obnoxious, then they’ll have the opportunity to talk shit respond directly. Then we can have feuds in the blogosphere that will be significantly more direct than any confrontation that has ever occurred between two people in a Big 4 firm.
Let’s help these guys out as I’m sure this will be a difficult task for them. Leave your suggestions of what your favorite CEO’s blog would be called or what kind of questions you’d like to ask them in the comments

Firm Watch: BDO

BDO-small.jpgAll right, so this is it for our firm watch. We realize loading three firms into one day wasn’t such a good idea but we procrastinated out of habit.
We wrap up with BDO Seidman, who some of you probably consider to be TTT-1 but whatevs.
See BDO’s list, after the jump


• Lawsuits – BDO International Global Cooperation hit the lottery when a jury in South Florida bought the wedding planner defense in the Banco Espirito lawsuit. That left the U.S. firm to deal with the $520 million verdict in the original case. The U.S. firm just reported revenue results of $622 million. No word on how that will reconcile.
• Madoff Exposure – Listed as a defendant in seven lawsuits.
• Overtime Lawsuits – List as a defendant in one lawsuit.
• Layoffs, etc. – Same dealio as GT. We’ve only heard of minor layoffs but as high as 200 in the UK. Get us up to speed if you’ve got details.
• Miscellaneous – Global CEO Jeremy Newman has a blog that is frequently TLDR. The U.S. CEO has been compared to a special version of Ricardo Montalban and a former partner had to recently give up his boat.
Finally. That catches you up on all the firms that you’ll see regularly around here. They all seem doomed but also have the tenacity of cockroaches. You’ll see our totally unfair, unrealistic ranking tomorrow with some updates that we’ve gotten throughout the week. Before then, continue to send us your tips to tips@goingconcern.com.

Ex-BDO Partner Won’t Be on His Boat after Plea Deal

Ex-BDO partners that were involved with the firm’s tax shelters are continuing to drop like flies. This time, Mark Bloom, a hedge fund manager and former BDO partner that worked in the Tax Solutions group, pleaded guilty to several charges.
Bloom agreed to forfeit assets as part of his plea agreement including a boat and two Steinway pianos which Bloom performed versions of his favorite songs on:
Check out the song selection, after the jump

BDO Seidman’s Revenue Disappoints Us

weisbaum.gifBDO Seidman’s revenue for the fiscal year end June 30 dropped nearly 6% to $620 million and dammit, we’re disappointed. Sure tax revenue is up 6% but assurance revenue was down 9% and consulting revenue was down over 15%. What’s the reason for this? According to BDO’s CEO Jack Weisbaum it’s…wait for it…yes, the recession. What a news flash.
According to Web CPA, BDO’s revenue breakdown is 60/25/10 for audit/tax/consulting and the remaining 5% is a grab bag of stuff. Point is, BDO is a whore for audit and considering how the whole Banco Espirito thing turned out…
Speaking of Portuguese banks, BDO is still on the hook for $522 million. No word on how that fits into the firm’s plans to bounce back in fiscal year 2010.
BDO Seidman Revenue Falls Due to Recession [Web CPA]

BDO ‘Invites’ Partners to Retire in the UK

BDO-small.jpgBDO in the UK has “‘invited’ 24 partners to take retirement and is in the process of settling the details over the withdrawal of equity”, according to Accountancy Age. And by “invited”, we’re pretty sure BDO means, “pack your shit”.
According to Simon Michaels, the head honcho in the UK, the “withdrawal of equity” would not be an “unmanageable situation to deal with” which is sorta like saying “it’ll hurt for a little while but as soon as my ownership is bigger, I’ll be over it.”
This whole sitch across the pond compelled us to call a BDO rep here in the States to find out what might be going down for the American partners. We were told that there were no plans for dismissal of partners in U.S. and in fact, partners will likely to continue to be added to the firm. This jogged our hazy memory about our speculation that BDO was adding some partners last month in order to spread out some liability.
So it appears that since BDO International Global Coordination isn’t on the hook for the half a billion in liability from the Banco Espirito case, they can’t afford to keep all their partners. BDO in States, on the other hand, needs to spread out the love on the liability. Don’t you love it when everything makes sense?
Reality bites for BDO Stoy Hayward [Accountancy Age]

BDO, Looking to Spread Out Some Liability, Admits New Partners

BDO_International.pngAs you probably know, BDO Seidman is having a rough year. Tax shelter prosecutions and trials for the International Global Coordination firm that now falls on the U.S. make for some big liability exposure.
The obvious solution to this conundrum? Spreading the love!

BDO Seidman, LLP, is pleased to announce that 10 new partners have been admitted to the partnership, effective July 1, 2009. Five of the new partners are in the tax practice, four are in the assurance business line and one is in BDO Consulting. BDO Seidman, LLP is a leading national professional services firm providing assurance, tax, financial advisory and consulting services to private and publicly traded businesses.”I am very proud to welcome each of these very deserving individuals to our partnership,” said Jack Weisbaum, CEO of BDO Seidman. “The key to maintaining momentum in our profession is a commitment to recruiting, training and retaining superior client service professionals. Each of these new partners is an example of our commitment to human capital development.”

What are the chances that these new partners are some of the most hated people in the firm? C’mon, $520 million judgment hanging out there, the bigwigs have to be thinking, “well, as long as we’re screwed, we may as well stick it to some people within the firm we don’t like.”
Congrats to the new partners!

BDO Seidman, LLP, Admits 10 New Partners [BDO Seidman Press Release]

You Know That Guy Who Panhandles on Your Block? He May Be a CPA.

Anybody out there looking to help their fellow CPA, who’s down on his luck?
The Wall St. Journal is reporting that the former BDO Seidman LLP CEO, Denis Field may have to pay back a portion of $180 million that is being sought by prosecutors in the tax shelter case that involves Field and six others.
Natch, everybody has denied wrongdoing. The charges include conspiracy and tax evasion. Good luck with that.

Prosecutors Seek Ex-BDO Seidman CEO, 6 Others To Forfeit $180M [WSJ]

Jeremy Newman Just Wants to Be Clear, We are NOT Declaring Victory Over Banco Espirito…YET

BDO_International.pngAfter throwing an all night rager last week when BDO International Global Coordination skated on the $521M verdict, Jeremy Newman, BDO Boss, wants everybody to chill.

Newman said he had always been confident that BDO International’s arms-length approach would be proved but added: ‘There is still the risk of a further appeal, as well as the appeal by the US firm.’

See? Staying cool. Not out of the woods yet. But when we beat those bastards on appeal, then we are getting down.

Newman stays cool after BDO victory [Accountancy Age]