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Leaders From the Big 4 Rang the Closing Bell Today

That is, they clapped while someone rang a bell, along with some other people. Try to contain your excitement.

It doesn’t appear to be too awkward. Not sure how Steve Howe got squeezed way over there but the Lehman thing probably doesn’t help. Thoughts on pretty much anything – trash talk amongst Barry and Bob, did John Veihmeyer need lifts?; did they all read Going Concern today? – are welcome at this time.

Compensation Watch ’10: Ernst & Young Re-reassures Merit Increases

About a month ago, we heard about an E&Y town hall in Chicago that was meant to rally the troops after the last two weeks of March saw ubiquitous Lehman Brothers/Repo 105/bankruptcy examiner’s report coverage.

Plus, it was the end of busy season so people were likely at their wits end. At said town hall, the raises promised by Americas Managing Partner Steve Howe back in January were reassured.


Despite this message, Steve Howe sent out a triple-reassuring message yesterday to everyone that wasn’t listening and/or didn’t get the communiqué:

Stevie Howe just sent out another long VM confirming raises this year. On a related note, FSO sent out a note about accelerating the annual review process to account for the expedited compensation review process.

Another source told us that more details are to come on an upcoming webcast, and because of the “expedited comp review” process, it has been suggested that the merit adjustments may occur earlier than usual. Right now, our source speculates that it will go down in August but no hard date has been thrown out there. Keep us updated.

Ernst & Young “Believes” It Will Have Pay Raises This Year

guarantee.jpgGreat news Ernstiverse! If you didn’t have the pleasure of hearing it yesterday, Steve Howe, your Americas Area Managing Partner, announced that he “believes” that you’ll be back to pay increases this year, but he’ll let you know for sure as you get closer to the “salary adjustment date”. Sounds like a guarantee to us!

Plus! Being a general believer in resolutions (and noticing you haven’t don’t anything about that paunch), we heard that the firm will now reimburse “reasonable fitness fees incurred while traveling.”


No doubt Steve-o was in a good mood yesterday after seeing that E&Y was the highest ranking Big 4 firm on the F100BCTWF list and he felt like spreading more good news. In his mind, the title was never in doubt but it’s still nice to see the confirmation.

SH makes three accounting firm big shots to announce that happy times are here again in 2010. Along with soon-to-be blogger Stephen Chipman and the original shot-caller, Bob Moritz, the thawing of salaries might be gaining momentum.

The question does remain: will T Fly and Dr. Phil make similar announcements? Have they already? Are they saving it for a better time, say, mid-February when many of you will be close to losing your shit and are about to storm out once and for all? If they’ve made guarantees, kindly let us know, we’d like a superfecta if possible.

Memo to E&Y’s Steve Howe: Choose Your Ice Breaker Carefully

If you’ve got nothing going on tonight and you’re in the Chapel Hill, NC neck of the woods, Steve Howe, E&Y’s Americas Area Managing Partner will be speaking at UNC tonight starting at 5:30. Don’t worry, it’s scheduled to end at 7:00 sharp so you’ll have plenty of time to get home in time for baseball or whatever else is on TV these days.
We’re mostly curious how Steve-o will break the ice with the audience, considering it’s been an awkward moment for some of his fellow partners in the past. We’re confident he’ll be fine though, especially since he’s not phoning in the speech and leaving a voicemail for everyone.
It’s not clear if there will be a Q&A, so if you have questions that you’d like to ask Steve-o, kindly leave them in the comments and we’ll pass them along.
Dean’s Speaker Series – Steve Howe, Americas Area Managing Partner of Ernst & Young [UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School]