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The Grant Thornton ‘Global Six’ Campaign Has Hit a Snag

Posted on by Caleb Newquist

Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for Grant-thornton-logo.JPGGrant Thornton’s global revenue results have yet to come out, however the Times Online is reporting lower UK revenues for the past fiscal year. This widens the gap between GT and Big 4 and possibly jeopardizes any hope of the ‘Global Six’ moniker making it into the mainstream.


This despite their ambitious efforts:

Two years ago, Grant Thornton unveiled ambitious plans to increase revenue to £500 million. It had just acquired RSM Robson Rhodes and appeared set for rapid growth. There was talk that it could close the distance on Ernst & Young and break the Big Four’s lock on blue-chip audit and advisory work.

This, as the Times notes, appears to be only a pipe dream now. They dish a little gossip about GT merging with E&Y which was de-nied pretty adamantly by the UK CEO, ‘That’s absolutely not true and I’ve no idea where it comes from.’
We really wish we could take credit for starting that rumor but alas, we can’t. Furthermore, it wouldn’t be the same if GT had to merge with someone. It is, however, worth speculating if any type of semi-mega merger would even be possible. We touched on this topic some time ago but that was for sport so we’re asking for serious speculation now.
If you’ve heard merger talk at any of your firms discuss — or just wonder aloud about which firms would/could/should get together — in the comments and feel free to opine on GT’s latest efforts in the Global Six campaign.
Grant Thornton slips further behind the Big Four [Times Online]

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It might be a fair statement that we like to talk a little trash here at Going Concern. We do our best to embrace our natural inclination. However, every once in awhile we try to spread some positive news.
Today’s attempt at a positive story comes courtesy of Aaron Beam, a former CFO at HealthSouth. Beam was CFO at HealthSouth when the fraud first began in 1996. Beam describes his decision to make the numbers up this way, “one night, during the second quarter of ’96, I said, ‘OK, let’s do it,’ and we credited revenue that did not exist and we debited assets that did not exist.”
Not exactly the most sophisticated fraud in the world but whatevs. The Street and Richard Scrushy demanded results.
And so it went, until Beam left in 1997. HealthSouth continued to commit accounting fraud until 2002 when it imploded. Beam testified against “Hannibal Lecter” Scrushy but the slimeball walked on the criminal charges only to be found liable for damages to the tidy sum of a shade under $2.9 Billion.
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I’m trying to turn a big negative into a positive, because there is such a need for ethics in the business world today, and I’m in a unique position to talk about it. If we can teach college students that they’re going to face these kinds of temptations every day in the business world, we can make a difference.

WTG man, and hey, we’re being serious.
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