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.

Tax and SEC Deadline Watch: Are You About to Get Your Life Back?

Doubtful!

But it is March 15th and corporate return extensions are being submitted en masse. Tomorrow is also the deadline for accelerated filers to submit their 10-Ks so auditors that are borderline delirious (and probably feeling frumpy) might get more than four hours of sleep this week.

For you tax jockeys, today could mean a couple of things: 1) this is a bump in the road and your life will be even more hectic as your deadbeat clients who are now realizing that April 15th is coming up fast or 2) you don’t touch anything that isn’t an 1120 and you’re in the clear for awhile.


And for you auditors, hopefully you haven’t forgotten our little teaching lesson from the previous deadline? Try and catch all the embedded “f*cks.” And hey! E&Y is still having Canadian Tuxedo Fridays for a couple more weeks so that’s something to look forward to, amiright?

Yes, there are some of you out there that are still billing monster hours with no end in sight. But look at this way, if you haven’t quit by now, you’re in it to the end, so you better just read this reminder from Deloitte and get back to it. It’ll be over soon enough.

Are the Edgy Efforts Really Necessary for Recruiting Accountants?

PwC’s Branding Week taught us nothing we didn’t already know.

So as you may recall, PwC launched its massive PR campaign two weeks ago, wrapped up in super-PR spin in this clip from ABC news:


Even if you sat earnestly with pen in hand, I doubt you had any significant takeaways from the video. “Networking starts with the people you know.” “Students should be aware of what they post online.” “Careers are a marathon, not a spring.” Really? For a moment I thought networking was accomplished by connecting with complete strangers on LinkedIn. Please.

Don’t forget about Deloitte’s push to join the 21st century, albeit it a few years late. Talk of Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and YouTube channels, oh my! Come ON. Walk into a campus lecture hall of 100 students and you’ll find 97 of them tapping away on their cell phones. Are they tweeting? Hell no. This generation finds Twitter boring. They need more (as in pictures, tagging, communication channels) than Twitter can offer. Blah.

At the core of it all, are these efforts really necessary? The fundamentals of supply and demand will always make accounting majors one of the top recruiting prizes on college campuses. The major consistently has a top-five placement rate after graduation. Both the accounting firms and the private sector will continue to flourish as hiring grounds.

Then why bother? We all know the profession is sugar coated with promises of worldly travel or volunteer release time; the need for the best and brightest is no secret. That is, in itself, the answer.

Anyone can recruit an accountant, but the best and brightest are chased. Hounded. Stalked. All in the name of tweets.

Is Deloitte Trying to Ruin Spring Break?

We kid, we kid. Deloitte would never want to ruin spring break but they are giving a few students an alternative to drinking themselves blind for a week and possibly getting a bad case of crabs.

The firm is teaming up with the United Way and Teach for America for the third consecutive year to offer “Maximum Impact: Deloitte Alternative Spring Break”.


We’ve got no idea if all the slots are filled up but since one of them starts this Saturday you best get on this if your Cancun plans have fallen through:

• March 6 – 12 — Deloitte and United Way will co-host 50 students from approximately 30 colleges and universities along with 20 Deloitte professionals during a week of hands-on and skills-based volunteerism in Atlanta, Georgia. Students will work to enhance childcare centers, refurbish playgrounds for low-income youth, guide students in college exploration and promote literacy in children.

• March 14 – 18 — Deloitte and Teach For America will co-host 25 students from six colleges and universities along with 20 professionals from Deloitte and Teach For America for a week of education-centered volunteerism in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Volunteers will spend time working with schools and local students who face the challenges of educational inequity through projects that include improving campuses, developing classroom lessons and helping with class preparation work.

You better get on this ASAP if you’re interested since only 75 students and 40 professionals get to participate. The problem for current Deloittians is most of you are eyeballs deep in busy season anyway so this isn’t an option. So does this mean that non-busy season types like Jim Quigely, Barry Salberg, and Punit Renjen will be in attendance? And if so will they be sporting new board shorts for the pool time they are able to squeeze in?

Deloitte Offers Students Chance to Give Back, Explore Careers on Spring Break [Press Release]

Crowe Horwath Was the Big Audit Client Winner in 2009; E&Y, Deloitte Big Losers

We might be a little late to the party on this but it just recently came across our desk and since trying to get a post up today is akin to turning water into wine, we’re running with it. And, frankly, if a large portion of you regularly read the “Public Accounting Report” we’ll be blown (BLOWN!) away.

The determination of the ranking isn’t entirely clear to us so we’ll just go for some superficial analysis on Crowe Horwath (#1 on the list) and the Big 4:

• Crowe Horwath #1 – Net gain of 24 clients; net gain in audited revenue of approximately $4 billion; net gain in assets audited of $18.4 billion; net revenue to the firm of $11 million.

• PwC #2 – Net loss of 8 clients; net gain in audited revenue of $34.9 billion; net gain in assets audited of $2.68 billion; net revenue to the firm of $8.4 million.

• KPMG #5 – Net loss of 1 client; net gain in audited revenue of over $12.9 billion; net loss in assets audited of $61.4 billion; net loss in revenue to the firm of $19.5 million.

• Ernst & Young #9 – Net loss of 30 clients; net gain in audited revenue of $5.3 billion; net loss in assets audited of $53.8 billion; net loss in revenue to the firm of $36.7 million.

• Deloitte #10 – Net loss of 7 clients; net loss in audited revenue of over $90.5 billion; net loss in assets audited of $718 billion; net loss in revenue to the firm of $74.7 million.


Crowe Horwath’s net gain of 24 clients is easily the highest of the firms presented and they’re the only firm that has increases in all the categories presented. Kinda makes you wonder why they had such a steady stream of layoffs in 2009. We’re open to suggestions and wild-ass theories on this topic.

On the losing end, Deloitte’s loss of huge clients due to the financial apocalypse has been noted by our contributor Francine McKenna and is noted by the PAR:

The firm landed the most wins of any of the Big Four firms for 2009, 46, garnering 3.5% of the overall SEC audit wins for the year. Overall, the Big Four won 7.5% of the auditor changes reported during the first three months of 2005. What relegated the firm to last place in the standings was two huge loses: UAL, to E&Y, and Merril Lynch’s acquisition by Bank of America.

All that added up to nearly $75 million in lost audit fee revenue for Deloitte. In terms of the number clients lost, E&Y managed to cruise to that title with net loss of 30 clients:

E&Y captured some sizable wins for the year, notably UAL/Chicago (Revenue: $20.19 billion) from Deloitte and Apple/Cupertino, Calif. (Revenue $32.48 billion) from KPMG. But its gains couldn’t offset losses for the year of Tyson, Sovereign Bancorp and Nalco Holding, to name a few notable losses.

The end result of this client musical chairs doesn’t really add up to much in terms of revenue for any of the firms. Even the $75 million lost by Deloitte is a drop in the bucket compared to their fiscal year ’09 revenue of $26.1 billion.

Peruse as you numbers see fit and feel free to wave the flag.

Deloitte Polishes Its Online Recruiting Presence but Who’s Listening?

A few weeks back I talked about the flashy websites the Big 4 have invested in for recruitment purposes. For those of you DT’ers still wondering where your raises went, the answer is now clear.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a brand new (interactive!) recruitment website. DT is completely revamping their online presence.

Seemingly launched the same week as PricewaterhouseCoopers’ personal branding campaign, DT’s overhaul is much more comprehensive. The Twitter page already boasts 1,500 followers; its unique twist is that employees take turns tweeting about their daily work. Interesting approach, only if you remember to log in to the Twitter page and read the biography of the weekly tweeter.


Deloitte’s YouTube approach is similar to that of KPMG’s established page; clean and consistent website hosting professional videos. One of the videos, entitled “What if your work mattered to the world,” delves, umm, deeply into the importance of cow manure on the job. Taking the term “shitty job” quite literally, I suppose.

Finally, everything is nicely tied together with a flashy site showcasing – shockingly – its youngest and brightest employees. Stories, videos, and links to various DT pages make working for the dot seem downright enjoyable and fun.

The question remains, though – who is this targeting?

From my brief experience on the sites, there’s still no direct way to contact the recruiter responsible for a particular school (PwC boasts the only clear option). There’s no way to ask questions, request feedback, contact the recruiter who’s business card just went through the wash.

This maneuver of hiding behind a flashy website is a running theme for corporate recruiting websites. Why? Why not? The employers hold the cards. The recruiters mailboxes are already overflowing. And if you’re a top student on campus, trust me, the recruiters will find you. So why the website?

See the Joneses out there in front? Yup, better go catch them.

We’re still at a point in the social media world where no one really knows what works best. Facebook has been all the rage for teenagers and young adults, but now that older generations are joining in swarms (i.e. creepy overprotective parents) , there has been a shift of concern among younger users. Twitter is a cluster of a mystery, but the it’s a cluster that everyone (including me) is going along with.

The Big 4 marketing gurus are no different. They know that the recruiters will do the legwork to find the best candidates. They know students will talk to their professors for advice, and listen to their older friends who interned elsewhere.

Perhaps in the end the websites, tweets and cow videos are for the helicopter parents. Seriously. Recruit the parent, recruit the student.

Accounting News Roundup: Earnings Management and ‘Quadrophobia’; Deloitte vs. PwC on Loan Losses; Joe Francis’ Tax Lien Dropped | 02.15.10

Happy President’s Day! As we mentioned on Friday, we’ll keep you company throughout the day but it will be a little lighter schedule than normal. Most of you are suffering from a Valentine’s Day/Chinese New Year/Olympic Fever hangover anyway.

• For Some Firms, a Case of ‘Quadrophobia’ [WSJ]
Shout if you’ve heard this before: a study profiled by the Journal states that “many companies tweak quarterly earnings to meet investor expectations, and the “companies that adjust most often are more likely to restate earnings or be charged with accounting violations.”

So here’s another study on restatements and the companies that you . BFD right? Earnings management is rampant. What makes this particular study unique is the authors looked at the frequency of companies rounding their numbers up to meet expectations and discovered that the number 4 appears less frequently in general and especially in the earnings of companies that restate their financial statements. Naturally, they call it “quadrophobia”:

When they ran the earnings-per-share numbers down to a 10th of a cent, they found that the number “4” appeared less often in the 10ths place than any other digit, and significantly less often than would be expected by chance…

In theory, each digit should appear in the 10ths place 10% of the time. After reviewing nearly 489,000 quarterly results for 22,000 companies from 1980 to 2006, however, the authors found that “4” appeared in the 10ths place only 8.5% of the time. Both “2” and “3” also are underrepresented in the 10ths place; all other digits show up more frequently than expected by chance…

In their most intriguing finding, the authors found that companies that later restate earnings or are charged with accounting violations report significantly fewer 4s. The pattern “appears to be a leading indicator of a company that’s going to have an accounting issue,” Mr. Grundfest said.

So it’s safe to say that you can add Quadrophobic to Patrick Byrne’s list of potential ailments.

• Deloitte chief reignites accounting debate [FT]
Deloitte CEO Jim Quigley told the Financial Times that banks should “account for losses in two radically different ways to meet the opposing demands of politicians and accountants.” We’re not crazy about trying to please everyone but Quigs might have a good point here.

This would require banks to report two separate line items on their income statements, one for “incurred losses” and one for “expected losses”. Incurred losses report loan losses as they occur while “expected losses” would require banks to calculate an estimated loss provision over the lives of the loans.

PwC hates this idea saying it would ‘muddy the waters’. Richard Murphy thinks PwC is still living in fantasy land, “PWC is arguing against is anti-cyclical provisioning to ensure capital retention. To put it anothjer [sic] way, PWC wants pro-cyclical accounting that encoruages recklessness.”

Since the waters are already pretty f—ing muddy we’re not sure that it would do much harm. Users of financial statements already have a mind-numbing amount of information to dig through, one additional piece of information — a crucial piece in the case of bank financial statements, we might add — shouldn’t cause too much headache.

Joe Francis Off the Hook for $33 Million Tax Bill [TMZ]
Joe Francis’ IRS troubles seem to have magically disappeared, as TMZ reports that the IRS has dropped its $30+ million lien against the Douche of the Decade.

That eliminates one possible motive for the IRS shotgun shopping spree.

Technology SNAFU of the Day: DeloitteNet 2.0 Has a Case of the Mondays

We were notified last week about some exciting news for the capital market servants at Deloitte. DeloitteNet 2.0, the D’s new and improved internal intranet debuted today and the message was, because of this upgrade, your busy season, hell, your LIVES we’re going to be infinitely better:

Scheduled to launch Monday, January 25, DeloitteNet 2.0 is the result of an organization-wide effort to upgrade and redesign our intranet. It will include a new content structure and navigation, a new search engine, your very own “My DeloitteNet” site, and much more…
DeloitteNet will still be your go-to resource for the latest news and information. It will still provide access to essential tools and resources to get your job done, as well as offer access to the applications you need to manage your life here at Deloitte.

Not only that but Deloitte’s very own social networking phenomenon, D Street, would be fully integrated into the new intranet including a “My status” feature in case you want to tell everyone about the weather or how much you hate Mondays.


All this excitement was scheduled to kick off today with much fanfare. Many of you raced into work this morning, not being able to sleep last night in anticipation of this occasion were devastated to be greeted by this:
Thumbnail image for DeloitteNet2.0.jpg
Maybe too many people were distracted by the diversity debate or caught up thinking of new ideas for Project JARED.
Regardless of the cause, we’re sure everything is hunky-dory by now (?) and you’re all enjoying the plunders of DeloitteNet 2.0.
Earlier:
Big 4 Technology: Open Thread

Deloitte, KPMG Will Make Out Okay on This Whole Dubai Thing

dubai-the-world.jpgIf you spent the last four days in a tryptophan-induced coma, you may have missed the news that there’s a bit of a problem in Dubai. A $59 billion problem.

Long/short: Dubai World, the state sponsored investment company, asked for a six month extension on repaying principal and interest maturities to its lenders.

While this spooked a lot of people, the latest reports indicate that Dubai is of the opinion that it’s NBD.


Despite the claims by DW that nothing is fucked, it’s being reported that at least two Big 4 firms will get to bill the hell out of the parties privy to this latest debt-related SNAFU.
Dubai World has hired Deloitte to help them restructure their house of cards debt while KPMG is representing banks that hold $30 billion of the Dubai World debt in the negotiations. Now while we’d like to imagine tense, smoked-filled rooms with fists being slammed on conferences tables and screaming into speaker phones, it’s likely that it will be a much more cordial affair but we remain hopeful.

As for the other two usual suspects, why E&Y has been left out of the proceedings altogether is a mystery but the PwC/Becks/Dubai World connection seems like a good enough reason to us to keep P. Dubs on the sidelines. Call it a hunch.

We’ll keep you updated on the Big 4 angle of this story as it continues long into 2010.

KPMG lined up in $30bn Dubai rescue mission [The Independent]
Also see: Duh, Dubai! [JDA]
Deloitte Versus KPMG in Dubai World Saga [The Big Four Blog]

Deloitte, Grant Thornton Settle with Parmalat Investors

check.jpgU.S. Investors in Paramalat — the disturbingly long-life milk producer — have settled their lawsuit with Deloitte and Grant Thornton for $8.5 million and $6.5 million respectively.

Personally, if you make the decision to be associated with a company that consciously screws with the natural dairy production of a bovine, we’d say you’re on your own. However, this is America, where if you lose an asston of money on an investment (despite the morally ambiguous nature of said investment, not to mention the shiesty management), you sue.

The case was brought by several funds on behalf of thousands of investors who said they lost money from Parmalat’s multi-billion-dollar fraud.

“It is very rare that worldwide coordinating audit networks enter into settlements like what we have,” said James Sabella, a lawyer at Grant & Eisenhofer PA in New York representing the investors, in an interview.

Lead plaintiffs include Hermes Focus Asset Management Europe Ltd, Cattolica Partecipazioni SpA, Capital & Finance Asset Management, Societe Moderne des Terrassements Parisiens and Solotrat, court documents show.

We don’t know about the statement that settlements are “very rare”. The Big 4 has paid out nearly $6 billion in settlements since 1999 and settlements this year have included Deloitte/American Homes and E&Y/Akai.

Regardless, the good news for the investors is at least they got something. The bad news is that it was far less than the amount they claimed to have lost:

The U.S. equity investors believed they suffered $138.2 million of damages, but Sabella said their claims might have been reduced by earlier settlements. He also said taking their case to a jury could have been “full of difficulties.”

A Deloitte spokesperson declined to comment pending the approval of the settlement by Judge Lewis Kaplan. Grant Thornton did not immediately return our email requesting comment.

This latest development in the story that never ends Parmalat case is the first that we’ve reported that doesn’t involve the persistence of the company trying and failing and trying again to chase down banks and auditors for money related to the company’s bankruptcy in 2003. From the looks of it, we’ll be following these developments long into the next decade.

Ex-Parmalat auditors settle US investor lawsuit [Reuters]

Deloitte Is Super Proud of Their 100% Free Preventive Healthcare

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Reno.jpgA source at Deloitte let us know that at least one partner thought it was pretty kick ass that Uncle Dangle was providing healthcare coverage that basically amounts to an HMO:

I got off a call where a partner seemed pretty pleased w/ himself (read: the partnership). “100% Free Preventative Healthcare” was how it was termed. I’m not sure how it affects others, but frankly under my plan, there wasn’t a difference. Just thought it was funny that a big-deal was made of it when the difference was non-existent.

More, after the jump


Text from Deloittenet:

Deloitte’s Total Rewards team worked with our national medical plans to offer 100 percent coverage of in-network preventive care to all of our program participants as of January 1, 2009. This care applies to well-man, woman, and child visits, including lab tests and other preventive screenings. With such a generous preventive care benefit in place, there is no longer a need for the Physical Exam Reimbursement Policies (Administrative Policy Release 465 for partners, principals and directors and Administrative Policy Release 266 for senior managers and managers).
By using an in-network provider through one of Deloitte’s national medical plans, you are able to receive important preventive health care benefits at no cost. A detailed description of the preventive care benefits available through each of the plans is available on DeloitteNet.

Thanks for the notification D. Save us all the trouble and just call it an HMO. It’s certainly arguable that HMOs have been shown to increase wellness but why the hell didn’t they just claim to have invented the Internet?

Deloitte Closes Reno Office, Employees Not Totally Munsoned*

Thumbnail image for Reno.jpgDeloitte is closing its Reno office, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal. The firm isn’t letting any of the eighteen employees go, rather they will either work from home or at client locations.

Bad news is that we wouldn’t expect the community colleges in the Reno area to get any attention any time soon and if you’re looking to get in on some free donuts, law enforcement is probably your best option.

Deloitte firm closing Reno office [Reno Gazette-Journal]

*We’re not sure this is necessary but whatevs.

Deloitte Study Says That Half of You Aren’t Scared of Swine Flu. Tell That to a Backstreet Boy

brian littrell.jpgDammit people, this is serious. Deloitte is doing studies for crying out loud. Yet, over half of you still aren’t completely freaking the hell out over swine flu.
Ordinarily, we’d let this slide by but it doesn’t seem to be a typical Tuesday, so we’ll ask that you bear with us.
How about one of the finest entertainers on the planet getting the H to 1 to the N to the 1? Will this convince you that this needs to be taken seriously?
When a member of a heartthrob boy band that, for all intents and purposes, has been annihilated from popular culture altogether is affected, doesn’t that cause you to stop and think?
Deloitte studies, fine, those are totally meaningless. We’re talking a step below D-List celebrities getting sick. Please reconsider your indifference.
Swine Flu Preparedness: Consumer Pulse Study Fact Sheet [Deloitte Center for Health Solutions]