Tag: PwC

Winners and Losers in the Overstock Restatement

With Overstock.com announcing last week that they would be restating their financial statements for the the last three quarters and their 2008 consolidated financial statements, it marked another open-mouth-insert-foot moment for Patrick Byrne and his Company.

This will be the third restatement in the last three years. We understand that financial reporting can be tricky but this doesn’t make for a very good pattern.

Winners:

• Steve Cohen, Michael Milliken, Sam Antar, Joe Nocera, Gary Weiss, Roddy Boyd, Barry Ritholtz, Felix Salmon, Henry Blodget, John Carney, Joe Wisenthal, et al. – Anyone and everyone vilified by Patrick Byrne because they questioned either him, his Company, or both. Patrick Byrne has always maintained that these people were part of large conspiracy of short sellers and financial bloggers and journalists. The restatement simply proves that whatever suspicions they had about Overstock, they were right. Plus all their friends and family on Facebook were violated by creepazoid and Deep Capture hatchet-man, Judd Bagley. That’s just not cool.


• Grant Thornton – Not sure if GT realized it at the time, but getting fired by Overstock is looking pretty good right now. So they changed their minds on the accounting; BFD, right? It happens and clients typically get over it. Pat Byrne decided that it was unacceptable and that LOUDLY crucifying GT in SEC filings, the press, and on conference calls would convince everyone that the auditors were idiots and Overstock and he would triumph over this injustice. Grant Thornton did not hesitate in chanting “liar, liar pants on fire” to Patsy’s face (nothing to lose, they were already fired) and now they’re clear of this three ring circus.

Losers:

PricewaterhouseCoopers – PwC was the auditor for Overstoc prior to Grant Thornton and had always signed off on the company’s financial statements (excellent service in PB’s mind). Now that the restatement has occurred, PwC gets dragged back into the fray to explain what they did, why they did it, and how they got it wrong. A) That just sucks and B) who the hell is going to remember what the hell they did four years ago?

Overstock shareholders – Any Company that restates their financial statements with any regularity whatsoever should be avoided like a group of lepers. If you’re still currently long in Overstock, you have the chance to make the right the decision: sell while the shares are worth something. Your humble servant Patrick Byrne has failed you.

Jury is out:

KPMG: For some reason, Klyneveld Salt Lake City decided that despite Overstock’s dubious past, they were willing to roll the dice. The firm now has the pleasure of guiding the firm through this restatement and somehow pulling the audit for fiscal year 2009 together. The whole exercise reeks of futility. Anyone that happened to be assigned to this engagement and a shred of sanity would have given their notice on the spot. For the time being, the firm seems to be sticking it out but time will tell if the firm changes their mind about their risky new client.

SEC: Everyone knows that the Commission doesn’t have the best track record of late. They have managed to be the laughingstock of the entire bureaucracy and despite a lot of huffing and puffing about new divisions and putting together a dream team of enforcement and financial experts, we haven’t seen much for results. Overstock may be a chance to show everyone that they’re done taking shit and that they are going to start smacking companies around.

Review Comments | 12.29.09

Thumbnail image for Joe-Francis.jpg• ‘Girls Gone Wild’ Founder Sues IRS – The newly crowned Douche of the Decade is in a litigious mood. After threatening to sue Gawker for the prestigious honor he was bestowed, DOTD is now suing the IRS for freezing his assets. Will someone stop to this man douche?[Web CPA]

• Bill Would Require Comptroller General to be a CPA – Now there’s an idea. [Web CPA]

• Lehman administrators PwC repay $11bn to creditors – Seems like good news. [BBC]

• 2010: Get Ready for a Tax-a-palooza – “Facing trillions of dollars of expiring Bush-era tax cuts, President Obama and Congress will be forced to make some critical decisions in the new year.” [Tax Vox]

• SEC Seeks PAFs: Jan. 13 Deadline – Professional Accounting Fellows. You. [FEI Financial Reporting Blog]

• Let’s Talk About the Terrorist Underpants, Shall We? – Yes. Let’s. [DI]

• Revealed: How Oscar Nominee Ballots Are Counted – Because we know you were wondering. [The Wrap]

• Tax Court Channels Kenny Rogers – Raj isn’t the only fan. [Tax Update Blog]

• Shareholders Win Settlement in Comverse Suit – Deloitte pitched in $275,000. That’s roughly the equivalent to one partner’s Starbucks budget. [Web CPA]

• Bouncing Back: Overcoming a Negative Performance Review – Anyone? [FINS]

• Tax Accountants to Get Biggest 2010 Raise – Good news already! [TaxProf Blog]

Overstock.com Fires Grant Thornton, Files Unreviewed 10-Q, CEO Remains Humble

patrick_byrne.jpgThere’s really nothing better than an eccentric CEO throwing caution to the wind, consequences be damned.
Insert Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com (“OSTK”). He issued a letter via press release yesterday that has many people’s attention.
Byrne opens the letter by quoting Nietzsche:
“All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”


Tragic enough but then Byrne really amps it up, droning on for eleven points about his company’s dire situation. Here’s the gist*:
• The difficult accounting treatment of an overpayment received by OSTK from a “partner”.
• Putting the audit out to bid after “eight years of fine service” from P. Dubs, and hiring GT because “my belief that changing auditors every decade or so might be healthy.”
• SEC inquiries into the accounting treatment of the overpayment.
• GT changing their minds on the accounting treament after said inquiries.
• We’re filing an unreviewed 10-Q, P. Dubs is on board for our treatment, GT is fired, anyone (and I mean anyone) want to audit us?
Byrne spends no less than six paragraphs/points explaining GT’s wishy-washy, bending-over-for-the-SEC ways. The man is nothing if not thorough.
Spineless auditors notwithstanding, Byrne will press on, the company will overcome, and he will remain committed to you, Overstock.com shareholder:

I will hold a conference call to further explain and answer questions regarding this matter on Wednesday afternoon at 5:00 p.m. EST (details below). Until then, I remain,
Your humble servant,
Patrick M. Byrne

10-Q [SEC.gov]
8-K: Dismissal of Grant Thornton [SEC.gov]
Press Release [SEC.gov]
*If you want to debate the particulars, be my guest but this isn’t the Journal of Accountancy, feel me?

PwC Needs to Recognize Marketing Genius When They See It

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for becks.jpgAccountancy Age has a extra puffy puff piece on P. Dubs’ “head of sport” Julie Clark and how PwC will be everyone’s hero — and she’ll be a regular Einstein — if England can land the World Cup for 2018.
Sidebar: According to the piece, E&Y is sponsoring the Ryder Cup next year and Deloitte is sponsoring the Olympics in 2012. This brings up two points: A) Real original E&Y and B) What the hell, KPMG? If you want to keep up with the Joneses you better dump that always-a-bridesmaid (okay, occasional champion) golfer and get those letters on a BCS bowl or something.
Not only does Accountancy Age not give any details on Clark’s plans but they also manage to completely ignore the ingenious marketing campaign/sponsoring opportunity that would all but lock this thing up.
Need we remind everyone of our first brilliant (albeit subtle) suggestion regarding an accounting firm and a certain sponsored golfer? Working out, isn’t it?
Make no mistake, I’m sure Ms. Clark knows what she’s doing and we’re not expecting her to take our suggestion that seriously but if she blows it…We’ll be expecting a call.

Rumor Mill: ‘Meeting with Partner’ Requests Going Out at PwC

Maybe it’s just an informational sit-down for the new P. Dubs tighty-whities that you’re all going to be expected to wear but our contributor, Francine McKenna had this ominous tweet:
Picture 1.png
Apparently someone else may have an itchy trigger finger. According to the comments over at RTA the emails have gone out to an office on the east coast but nothing more specific than that.
Keep us updated if you get a notice or if you know someone who gets a notice, or you know someone who knows someone, etc.

Layoff Watch: PwC November ’09 Edition

Thumbnail image for becks.jpgWe’re not going to say that the pending endorsement of Becks’ undies has anything to do with it but that guy doesn’t come cheap.

Our contributor, Francine McKenna, is reporting on her blog that PwC Advisory cuts will be going down next week:

I’ve just received word: There was a PwC Advisory partners emergency conference call tonight announcing upcoming involuntary staff reductions.
(This time the source is impeccable.)

New US Advisory Leader, Dana McIlwain laid out the bad news: The time has come to cut. Average utilization is hovering at 69%. Cash collections are millions short. Campus recruiting for Advisory has been stopped cold. Business sucks and then there’s the 800+ BearingPoint folks to absorb.

On November 11th the rank and file partners, fortified after training and coaching by HR via a webcast in the next few days, will chop 300+ professionals from PwC Advisory, at all levels, all geographies, all practices. Most have already seen the writing on the wall via forced ranking.

Well, crap. We’re not talking Lotus Notes developers this time around. If the guillotine does indeed drop next week, it probably won’t come as a surprise with the less-than exciting revenue numbers and the rumors that the firm was phoning in no raises for fiscal year 2010.

Oh and then after whoring themselves out for AHIP, P. Dubs turned around and folded like a cheap lawn chair. That probably won’t win you clients.

We’ll keep our ear to the ground on this but in the meantime, let us know if you’ve got more details on these rumored layoffs or if you get an unexpected email much earlier than next Wednesday. It’s been known to happen.
Veteran’s Day In PwC Advisory: Say Auf Wiedersehen [Re: The Auditors]

Earlier: PwC’s Re-thinking of the Bell Curve Ranking

Also: Ratings, Raises, and Promotions: Forced Ranking in the Big 4

Firm Mascot Challenge: PwC

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Ashley3.jpgWe’ll assume everybody is down with the KPMG Pomeranian and Uncle Dangle for Deloitte. If not, speak now or shut your pieholes.
There’s some resistance to the idea of famous Governor banger, Ashley Dupre, being worthy of the PwC Mascot.
Frankly, since P. Dubs has made some feel like prosties already and has also shown that, as firm, they don’t mind whoring themselves out for some scratch, the argument can easily be made that Ashley is the perfect mascot. On the other hand, the point has been made, and is duly noted, that high-priced call girls are much cooler than any accounting firm.
So you see the problem here but it’s not our decision. We’ll leave it up to you. State your submission for the PwC mascot and give a brief explanation for said suggestion in the comments.
Keep it clever people, mascots already assigned to any other team or organization will be ignored with extreme prejudice. On with it then.

PwC pretty much admits that they are…

prostie.jpg…whores for the insurance industry.

The firm issued a statement today after nearly every news outlet called them out as corporate trollops after the release of their report on the Baucus healthcare reform bill yesterday.


Per Politico:

America’s Health Insurance Plans engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers to prepare a report that focused on four components of the Senate Finance Committee proposal:
· Insurance market reforms and consumer protections that would raise health insurance premiums for individuals and families if the reforms are not coupled with an effective coverage requirement.

· An excise tax on employer-sponsored high value health plans.

· Cuts in payment rates in public programs that could increase cost shifting to private sector businesses and consumers.

· New taxes on health sector entities.

The analysis concluded that collectively the four provisions would raise premiums for private health insurance coverage. As the report itself acknowledges, other provisions that are part of health reform proposals were not included in the PwC analysis. The report stated on page 1:

“The reform packages under consideration have other provisions that we have not included in this analysis. We have not estimated the impact of the new subsidies on the net insurance cost to households. Also, if other provisions in health care reform are successful in lowering costs over the long term, those improvements would offset some of the impacts we have estimated.”

It seems as though P. Dubs is trying to clarify that, “We know we’re whores. We even said so in our report. We’re the classy type of whore though. We won’t do anything unless the money is right but we are good at pleasing our clients.”

What we’re wondering is why PwC would go to the trouble of putting out a report that they knew was one-sided and then their client dances around like the report was brought down by Moses from Mount Sinai. Maybe the firm wasn’t expecting such an enthusiastic response.

WTFK but something tells us that AHIP may not be enjoying their PwC Experience as much as they were yesterday.

PWC statement — Not so helpful for AHIP [Live Pulse/Politico]

PwC Lends a Hand to the Insurance Industry

Thumbnail image for pwclogo.thumbnail.jpgWe’re confident that you all enjoy talking about healthcare reform. If it wasn’t for the long hours you had to work, we’d be reading about all the accountants showing up at the town hall meetings to bring sanity to what otherwise appears to be a meeting of escaped mental patients.
Now, just when you thought that the debate had saturated the country into submission, America’s Health Insurance Plans has put out a new report, courtesy of P. Dubs, that states that the costs of health insurance would rise significantly under the plan submitted by Senator Max Baucus of Montana.
Continued, after the jump


From the executive summary:

There are four provisions included in the Senate Finance Committee proposal that could
increase private health insurance premiums above the levels projected under current law:
• Insurance market reforms coupled with a weak coverage requirement,
• A new tax on high-cost health care plans,
• Cost-shifting as a result of cuts to Medicare, and
• New taxes on several health care sectors.
The overall impact of these provisions will be to increase the cost of private health insurance coverage for individuals, families, and businesses. The net impact of these increases on households would include the impact of these increases and the new subsidies provided under the bill.

The report states that on average, costs will go up 79% under the current system between 2009 and 2019 and 111% for the same time period if the provisions are implemented.
Politico calls bullshit, “The industry, which didn’t like last week’s [Congressional Budge Office] report, bought its own analysis and will tout the PricewaterhouseCoopers findings in new ads.”
On the one hand, you can’t really expect PwC to do put out a report like this for nothing but did anyone really expect them to come to a different conclusion?
As we pointed out recently, accounting firm reports typically don’t get lots of attention but when they do, it’s usually over something that causes people to get all crazy for their particular side.
PwC will certainly be perceived as the insurance industry whore here but since they aren’t actually an insurance company, the firm won’t likely receive the worst of the populist chastisement and will just enjoy some free publicity.
Insurers, docile till now, go to war [Politico Pulse]
Potential Impact of Health Reform on the Cost of Private Health Insurance Coverage [PwC Report]