Tag: Deloitte

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, commonly referred to as Deloitte, is a international professional services network headquartered in London, United Kingdom.

Here you’ll find news about Deloitte salaries and raises, promotions, press releases, and lawsuits.

Deloitte Tax Sells Deloitte Investment Advisors to Aspiriant

Don’t panic! DIA only has 40 professionals serving 450 clients so the band isn’t breaking up. Although, maybe this is a segue into Barry Salzberg’s shopping spree. Who’s to say?

Whatever it means, both c happy with how the deal turned out.


Deloitte’s Chet Wood: “We determined that divesting Deloitte Investment Advisors is in the best interest of DIA, our professionals and our clients. As part of the Aspiriant organization, the business will have greater latitude for growth through offering additional services and pursuing its own marketplace interests.”

Aspiriant’s Rob Francais: “This acquisition is another step in our long-term growth strategy to ensure that Aspiriant remains a leading independent wealth management firm that is well-positioned to serve the needs of wealthy families for generations to come. The employees at Aspiriant and DIA share the same high standards and values; we are truly cut from the same cloth, and we welcome this exceptionally skilled team to Aspiriant.”

So. D Tax is happy to free up some cash; Aspirirant is happy to get some exceptionally skilled cloth. Carry on.

BPR:

NEW YORK, July 19 /PRNewswire/ — Deloitte and Aspiriant today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Aspiriant Investment Advisors, a subsidiary of Aspiriant, a leading independent wealth management firm, will acquire Deloitte Investment Advisors LLC (DIA), a fee-only registered investment advisory group owned by Deloitte Tax LLP. The transaction is expected to close in September 2010, subject to customary approvals and closing conditions. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

DIA commenced operations in 1998 and is comprised of approximately 40 professionals. The group provides investment advisory services to individual and institutional investors and currently has approximately $2.9 billion in assets under advisement for more than 450 clients.

After a review of strategic opportunities for the business and an analysis of regulatory considerations, Deloitte Tax concluded that divesting DIA provided the best opportunity for the group’s future growth.

“We determined that divesting Deloitte Investment Advisors is in the best interest of DIA, our professionals and our clients,” said Chet Wood, chairman and chief executive officer of Deloitte Tax LLP. “As part of the Aspiriant organization, the business will have greater latitude for growth through offering additional services and pursuing its own marketplace interests.”

“This acquisition is another step in our long-term growth strategy to ensure that Aspiriant remains a leading independent wealth management firm that is well-positioned to serve the needs of wealthy families for generations to come,” said Rob Francais, chief executive officer of Aspiriant. “The employees at Aspiriant and DIA share the same high standards and values; we are truly cut from the same cloth, and we welcome this exceptionally skilled team to Aspiriant.”

Once the transaction is completed, Aspiriant will serve approximately 800 clients through eight offices in the U.S., and have more than $7 billion in assets under management and advisement.

“We are confident that our expanded team and geography will enable us to deliver additional benefits to clients through a broader range of investment and financial planning services, as well as increased depth of management and investment talent,” Francais added.

Are Ernst & Young and PwC Neck and Neck in the Compensation Race?

From the mailbag:

I heard some scoop and wanted to share with my fellow indentured servants in the big 4 field. Word on the street is that P-dubs gave 10% raises to staff 2s becoming senior 1s (early promote) and 16% raises to staff 3s becoming senior 1s.

However, P-dubs doesn’t hand out the 5k bonus that Uncle Ernies offers to its staff 2s becoming senior 1s. I’d like to see how EY will top this, per an earlier promise from a partner that EY raises will be higher than P-dubs (maybe can some low performing partners?). In addition, the variance between average performers and high performers at P-dubs is only .6% (not significant at all).


If you forgot what this is referring to, back in April we reported a tip out of the Ernstiverse that a partner had claimed that the raises at E&Y would beat PwC’s. The reports out of PwC have been better than expected, although not for everyone.

So if this partner’s prognostication holds up, how will they pull it off down the stretch? Seems like a good question. Conversations are going on right now and the official news will reportedly be out in a couple weeks.

Since we’ve got half of the Big 4 involved here we’ll just mention that the belly aching at KPMG is in full force on the bonus front but maybe there’s hope for a strong move down the stretch?

As for Deloitte, apparently communication has occurred for promotions but it sounds like word on comp could be more than a month out. If you’ve got the scoop get in touch with the details and discuss this four horse race but as it stands right now, it looks as if PwC has E&Y by a nose.

Accounting News Roundup: Congress Still Stalling on Tax Bill; ‘Most Americans Have Not Planned Well for Their Futures’; Deloitte’s Schroeder Joining FASB | 07.15.10

As Tax Cuts’ Expiration Date Nears, Little Consensus [WSJ]
“Lawmakers are negotiating a tax bill, but appear increasingly likely to wait until after the November election to take any final action that could anger voters—either by raising taxes, or by cutting them and thereby deepening deficits. Congress ultimately could decide to extend current tax levels for just a few months, leaving the issue for the next Congress to settle. Another option is a short-term extension of a year or two, avoiding for now the huge cost to the Treasury of a permanent extension. It’s even possible Congress might fail to take any action this year.”

From Jail, Conrad Black Fights $71 Million Tax Bill [Forbes]
“Imprisoned former media baron Conrad M. Black is fighting a $71 million bill from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, which says from 1998 to 2003 he filed no tax returns and paid absolutely nothing on $120 million in taxable income.

In a previously unreported lawsuit in U.S. Tax Court, Black, now serving a six-and-a-half-year-sentence in a Florida federal prison, is challenging the IRS’ demands and asserting the income in question wasn’t taxable in the U.S.”

Americans More Optimistic on Economy Than Their Own Finances, Survey Says [Bloomberg]
Who said Americans only think about themselves? “Americans are generally hopeful, and much of the economic news leads us to conclude that we are out of the recession and a double dip is unlikely,” said Robert Glovsky, chair of the CFP Board and director of Boston University’s program for financial planners. “With that said, most Americans have not planned well for their futures.”

Harvey Golub Resigns as AIG Chairman [WSJ]
“A weeks-long standoff between the chairman and chief executive of government-controlled American International Group Inc. ended Wednesday, when Chairman Harvey Golub resigned, saying, ‘I believe it is easier to replace a chairman than a CEO.’

Mr. Golub’s decision marks a victory for Robert Benmosche, the company’s hard-charging chief, who chafed under Mr. Golub’s oversight. Mr. Benmosche had told the board their working relationship was ‘ineffective and unsustainable,’ Mr. Golub said in his resignation letter.”

FASB hires expert to review how new rules perform [Reuters]
“Mark Schroeder, a recently retired senior partner at Deloitte & Touche [DLTE.UL], will serve as the board’s first “post-implementation review leader” and also serve a similar role for the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, FASB said.

The hiring of Schroeder is one of the big steps that FASB has taken to formalize its process for review of how new standards are performing. Banks and investors had complained during the financial crisis that FASB’s new rules on mark-to-market accounting had contributed to freezing the credit markets, but there was no formal process for reviewing the rules.”

Comp Watch: Sit Downs Starting at Deloitte; Anxiety Over Raises Picking Up

Lots of news this week on the compensation and promotion fronts with Grant Thornton, KPMG and PwC all making announcements or soon-to-be making announcements (that we’ve heard; are you holding out on us, E&Y?).

The latest out of Deloitte is that the discussions are starting (although maybe not today since it sounds like most are off) but the news on yay or nay on promotions is starting and now the anxiety around comp will increase over the next two month:

The year-end ratings and promotion decisions have been approved by National; so the process of communicating both to Deloittians is starting…At a high-level, I heard that promotions this year were tough – that being said, plenty of people made it through. For the most part, people are now waiting to hear about comp – scheduled for communication the last two weeks of August.

We did hear one rumor about the number of new partners expected, “at a recent partner meeting, it was announced that there will be more than 60 new PDPs nationally, with more than 10 being in the Northeast,” so you can toss that around your meat-ingestion fest this weekend if you so choose.

Discuss your epic/tragic news re: your new promotion if you’ve received word and keep us updated on the comp rumors.

Accounting News Roundup: Are “Tax-Aware” Juries the Solution to Deductible Punitive Damages?; Financial Fake Twitter Feeds; Deloitte’s Czech Problem | 07.02.10

Damages Control [NYT]
Because BP could end up paying a metric asston in punitive damages over the Deepwater Horizon whathaveyou, the Senate recently approved a repeal of punitive damages awarded in civil disputes being deductible for tax purposes.

The problem is that it probably won’t work, as Gregg Polsky and Dan Markel, two law professors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Florida State University write in an op-ed in today’s Times:

“When plaintiffs and defendants reach a settlement before a trial, which happens in most cases, they aren’t required to specify which parts of the settlement are punitive and which are compensatory; therene number. That allows defendants to disguise the amounts that they would have paid as punitive damages as additional compensatory damages.

And because the measure maintains the deductible status of compensatory damages, nearly all punitive damages will remain, as a practical matter, deductible. This easy circumvention surely explains the meager revenue projections from the measure: $315 million over 10 years.”

The solution, according to Polsky and Markel is to make juries “tax aware” so that they may adjust their findings appropriately, “the prospect of tax-aware jurors would also raise the amounts of settlements before trial — when, again, most cases are actually resolved. This is because the amount of a settlement depends on the amount that a jury is expected to award after a trial. If tax-aware juries became the norm, plaintiffs would push for higher settlements, and thus both settling and non-settling defendants would bear the correct amount of punishment. Under the Senate’s approach, in contrast, only the very few non-settling defendants would bear that punishment.”

Five Fake Finance Twitter Feeds [FINS]
These are far better reasons to be on Twitter than Ashton Kutcher or Kim Kardashian.


Charities fail to communicate in annual reports: Deloitte [Accountancy Age]
Whatever they are communicating, it’s still more informative than a “Transparency Report.”

More cloud accounting benefits [AccMan]
“It is becoming increasingly obvious that clouding computing benefits as they apply to the accounting arena stretch way beyond the ability to save time, effort and cost. As I meet with more customers, I am discovering benefits that only customers can express.”

Apollo Said to Hire PricewaterhouseCoopers’s Donnelly as CFO [Bloomberg BusinessWeek]
“[Gene] Donnelly, who starts in his new role today after 29 years at New York-based consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, fills a vacancy left by the departure of Kenneth Vecchione in January, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the hiring wasn’t announced. Barry Giarraputo, the company’s chief accounting officer, had been serving as interim CFO.”

Deloitte answers fraud reports [The Prague Post]
Francine McKenna tweeted about this story yesterday, where Deloitte has been cited by one Czech newspaper as being investigated by Czech anti-corruption police.

“Deloitte has been put on the defensive since the June 28 report in the daily Lidové noviny (LN) that quoted unnamed sources alleging a slush fund used to bribe public officials and fraudulent accounting that gave clients better financial results. Deloitte says the results of an internal review highlighted ‘certain deficiencies in management reporting,’ but considers the results an internal matter and will not make any comments.”

Accounting News Roundup: Senate Will Get to Financial Overhaul Post-July 4; Google to Cover Extra Health Benefit Costs for Gay Couples; Barry Wins a Stevie | 07.01.10

House Vote Sends Finance Overhaul to Senate [WSJ]
“The House agreed Wednesday to a sweeping rewrite of the nation’s financial regulations, moving the initiative one step closer to becoming law.

Focus now shifts to the Senate, where questions linger about whether Democrats have nailed down enough support from the handful of Republicans needed to overcome a likely filibuster. The Senate won’t take up the bill until after the July 4 recess, creating an awkward pause in which the bill’s opponents will have one last chance to derail it.”

Google to Add Pay to Cover a Tax for Same-Sex Benefits [NYT]
“On Thursday, Google is going to begin covering a cost that gay and lesbian employees must pay when their partners receive domestic partner health benefits, largely to compensate them for an extra tax that heterosexual married couples do not pay. The increase will be retroactive to the beginning of the year.

‘It’s a fairly cutting edge thing to do,’ said Todd A. Solomon, a partner in the employee benefits department of McDermott Will & Emery, a law firm in Chicago, and author of ‘Domestic Partner Benefits: An Employer’s Guide.’

Google is not the first company to make up for the extra tax. At least a few large employers already do. But benefits experts say Google’s move could inspire its Silicon Valley competitors to follow suit, because they compete for the same talent.”


Senate chairman starts probe of Transocean’s taxes [AP]
Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) would like to know whether Transocean’s move offshore was an exploitation of U.S. tax law, “The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee is launching an investigation into the tax practices of Transocean Ltd., owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, leading to the massive oil spill.”

Sadly, this will lead nowhere since exploitation ≠ illegal in this case. Deplorable? Yes. Tax malfeasance? No. Political pandering? Absolutely.

Deloitte CEO Barry Salzberg Wins Executive of the Year – Services at the 8th Annual American Business Awards [PR Newswire]
It’s a Stevie award! BS beat out Jeffrey Bezos, chairman, president and CEO, Amazon.com; Dominic Barton, managing director of McKinsey & Company; and Joseph Neubauer, chairman and CEO of ARAMARK for the Stevie.

In his own words, “I am very honored by this recognition, which truly is a testament to Deloitte’s progress and the industry-leading work of our more than 40,000 people in the United States. Although we have faced challenging economic times in the past few years, Deloitte’s diverse portfolio of quality services and investment in talent continue to drive our business and differentiate us in the marketplace. We are eager to approach the opportunities that await us and our clients in the economic upturn.”

GAAP and IFRS: Six Degrees of Separation [CFO]
That is, six major differences between the two sets of rules that will have to be ironed out. Namely: error correction, LIFO, reversal of impairments, PP&E valuation, component depreciation and development costs. After that, this convergence thing will be a breeze.

Who Will Deloitte Buy Next?

Deloitte CEO Barry Salzberg did a little sit down with the Journal and made it perfectly clear that he’s shopping for another acquisition. The BearingPoint transition seems to have gone as well as Dr. Phil could have asked for and now he’s ready to move on to the next one.

But who?

Mr. Salzberg declined to name specific future targets, but said he sees opportunities to build scale in areas including environmental and technology consulting.

“I would be very willing to make another and very willing to position ourselves properly for the right kind of acquisition or a combination in the market.”

The Journal article mentions the recent rumors around Booz & Co. merging with A.T. Kearney but BS wasn’t that hot on the idea (even though D could take both either of them no prob) saying that they aren’t, “‘as high a priority for me’ as other opportunities.”

Plus, Salz is hoping that he can offering something tangible for a change rather than just billing all your hours out, “He cited a newsletter, or ‘information services,’ as an example of something that isn’t as labor-intensive as consulting but provides a complementary service to clients. Such a business ‘isn’t as dependent on the hourly production of people,’ he said.”

No target is too big or too small, according to Salzberg but like we mentioned, he’s not naming names. So let’s try and read his mind a little bit, throwing caution to the wind – McKinsey? DiversityInc Magazine? The Hair Club for Men?

Suggestions, sincere wishes and wild-ass guesses are welcome.

Accounting News Roundup: Bank Tax Scrapped; Deloitte Cleveland Names New Managing Partner; What’s the Future of Internal Audit? | 06.30.10

Financial-Rules Redo Passes Major Hurdle [WSJ]
Who knew that lobbyists could be so effective? “Democrats initially proposed the $18 billion tax on the nation’s largest banks and hedge funds to cover the cost of expanding gof financial services, among other things. But the small number of Republicans crucial to the bill’s passage balked at the fee, which was added at the last minute to the legislation.

With more than a year’s worth of work in the balance, Democrats ditched the levy on Tuesday. Instead, they agreed to offset the bill’s costs by winding down early the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program and assessing a more modest fee on banks through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.”

Volcker Said to Be Disappointed With Final Version of His Rule [Bloomberg]
If you go to the trouble of getting your name on the rule, with specific ideas in mind about what said rule entails, you’d be pretty upset if lobbyists hacked up to the point that it’s hardly recognizable. Plus octogenarians are probably used to getting their way.

“Volcker, the 82-year-old former Federal Reserve chairman, didn’t expect the proposal to be diluted so much, said a person with knowledge of his views. He’s content with language that bans banks from trading with their own capital, the person said.

‘The Volcker rule started out as a hard-and-fast rule on risky trades and investments,’ said Anthony Sanders, a finance professor at George Mason University School of Management in Fairfax, Virginia. ‘But through negotiations, it was weakened and ended up with many loopholes.’ ”


How Not To Look Desperate When Looking for Your Next Finance Job [FINS]
Because we know there are plenty of you out there.

Deloitte names Craig Donnan managing partner in Cleveland [Crain’s Cleveland]
Cake party? Mr Donnan takes over for Pat Mullin who has been the managing partner of the office since 1999.

The future of the internal audit profession [Marks on Governance]
“If we are to be relevant, chief audit executives (CAEs) have to refocus on providing assurance regarding how well management identifies, evaluates, responds, and manages risks – including the controls that keep risk levels within organizational tolerances.”

The Problem With Unreported Income [You’re the Boss/NYT]
The problem being that if you’re going to have one helluva time selling your business if a decent portion of its revenues are unreported.

“Legal and moral issues aside, there is only one way to view unreported income when it comes time to sell the business: forget that money ever existed. If you can only manage what you can measure in business, then the same holds true for what you can sell.”

AIG hires ex-Lehman lawyer as compliance head [Reuters]
As long as AIG doesn’t ask about arcane accounting disclosures, this should work out fine.

How the Big 4 Are Helping Career Moms Have It All

The Harvard Business Review’s blog (Harvard blogs?) ran a piece earlier today about a recent Pew Research study that claims more women are not having children.

The HBR brushes over the whole birth control thing and serves its best interest by focusing on what they consider having it all (an advanced degree and at least one child), picking the following statistic out of the hay stack, “in 2008, 24% of women ages 40-44 with a master’s, doctoral or professional degree had not had children, a decline from 31% in 1994.”


This had me thinking about the benefits that the Big 4 provide to their employees going through early parenthood. What might surprise you (or might not) is how similar the firms’ services are.

From PwC.

From Deloitte.

From KPMG.

From E&Y.

Parental leave of absence: “Eligible primary care parents with three months of service can use six weeks of paid parental leave during the year following birth or adoption placement (three weeks for non-primary care parents). This is in addition to maternity disability benefits, if applicable, of 60% to 100% for approximately 8 weeks. Paid parental leave runs concurrently with any job-protected time under family and medical leave.”

Provided by every Big 4 firm:

Adoption assistance – Per EY’s site: “Pays expenses up to $5,000 per child (with an additional $1,000 for special needs children), with paid leave available for the caregivers, along with resource and referral services.”

Lactation program – PwC’s program, explained: “Access to educational materials, unlimited pre/post-birth counseling from nationally recognized lactation specialists and breast pump discounts are available through this program. Private mother’s rooms are also available in many of our offices.” Do conference frooms count as “mothers’ rooms?”

Parental paid leave of absence

Deloitte – 2 weeks (this is all I could find – can anyone prove differently?)

PwC – up to 6 weeks

KPMG – 8 weeks “Professionals who plan to return to work after the birth or adoption, are eligible for two weeks (10 days) of paid child care leave.”

E&Y – 6 weeks

Unique programs:

Family time off – The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 promises 12 weeks of unpaid leave for those employees who need to take care of a sick family member. E&Y extends this service to 16 weeks.

Back up Child and Elder Care – many of the firms provide some kind of support for employees when family care emergencies occur. KPMG takes things one step further by allowing employees to share their unused resources with colleagues that have depleted their resources.

Note – I used external websites when reviewing the different options – these might outdated from what you have internally. Does your local office offer something unique that is not listed here? Share details in the comments.

More Women Manage to Have It All [HBR]

Today in Auditor Musical Chairs: KPMG and Deloitte Both Get the Boot

Evergreen Energy of Denver dismissed Deloitte effective June 23rd according to the company’s 8-K filing. Hein & Associates, a local Denver firm, will take it from here.

It stands to reason that Evergreen didn’t appreciate the going concern opinions that Deloitte gave the company for its December 31, 2009 and December 31, 2008 financial statements but in cordial SEC filing fashion, there are no parting shots from the company.


Evergreen’s press release indicates that this was simply an opportunity to throw some action to another firm (most likely with lower fees), “With the sale of certain Buckeye assets and our exit from the coal mining industry, Evergreen Energy has transitioned into a green technology company. This is an ideal time to switch to a Denver-based regional accounting firm with substantial public company expertise in the clean technology and software industries that can more cost effectively meet our needs.”

Deloitte’s letter to the SEC is abruptly admits that everything is cool rather than flat out saying, “you’ll be sorry you ever ditched us, you losers.”

Similarly, Measurement Specialties, Inc. showed KPMG the door for Ernst & Young. The company says everything was hunky-dory between the two although there was a small matter of the internal controls around a significant joint venture of which the company had no control. Oh, and the effectiveness of internal controls of some recent acquisitions also couldn’t be determined. But it was cool and the company said, “it was in the best interests of the Company to change its independent registered public accounting firm.”

KPMG has NFI what that means saying in their letter, “we are not in a position to agree or disagree with Measurement Specialties, Inc.’s statements relating to the reason for changing principal accountants.”

We wish everyone nothing but happiness.