Comments on: Live Our Values, Demonstrate Our Behaviors, Support Our Strategy…

By: Is Any Other Audit Firm Vulnerable Besides Ernst & Young? - Francine McKenna - Accounting Watchdog - Forbes

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 18:03:16 +0000

[...] The four largest accounting firms in the world are Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. They are global brands. They may act global but they think local. [...]

By: re: The Auditors » Blog Archive » PCAOB Waiting For Godot: Reporting On Auditor Performance During The Financial Crisis

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:31:55 +0000

[...] 2. Firms have made efforts to respond to the increased risks stemming from the economic crisis. The deficiencies identified by inspectors in their reviews of issuer audits suggest that firms should continue to focus on making improvements to their quality control systems. (This continues to be a problem, has been cited numerous times before and the firms are defiant. [...]

By: re: The Auditors » Blog Archive » Hidden In Plain Sight: Audit Failure And The Big 4 Audit Firm Response

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:58:11 +0000

[...] audit quality at PwC: PricewaterhouseCoopers changed its bonus criteria to emphasise business growth, which jumped from 25% to 40% as a proportion of its [...]

By: re: The Auditors » Blog Archive » PwC Trying To Buy Consulting Revenue Again With Diamond Deal

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:30:28 +0000

[...] global member firms in 2009 were $26.17 billion, down from $28.19 billion in the same 2008 period. The firm’s Advisory services revenues were hardest hit by the recession of all PwC business areas, down 11.4 percent to $6.11 [...]

By: re: The Auditors » Blog Archive » PricewaterhouseCoopers Cuts Hundreds of Internal IT Professionals

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 03:46:30 +0000

[...] services firms, especially ones wracked by high litigation costs and lower fee income are loathe to spend money on internal activities. That requires 100 cents on the dollar bucks [...]

By: Firefly

Firefly — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 03:33:53 +0000

From my perception, the client service is suffering. In the last 18 months, I’ve seen numerous (more than 12) client deliverables that had errors and insufficient data because PwC does not value, or bring in, the subject matter experts. One deliverable was so poor and inaccurate that I’d be surprised if the client ever asks us back again. We gave another client “recommendations” that were “googled” and elementary. Yet another team provided a CBA that missed 75% of the real costs because the team didn’t know any better. Because the “U” word is like a whip with chain (utilization), everyone seeks ANY engagement they can find, and they take whatever they can get…without asking the right teams for help. As a result, directors without the proper skills are trying to find engagements and provide clients with incorrect deliverables. RFPs often go to the wrong group. While this has happened in all groups, internal audit appears to be the worse culprits. They think they have the skills to “fix” whatever they find from their audits. Rather than bringing in others, they deliver less than average, and sometimes incorrect, reports. Until the firm pays for team performance, and encourages use of the right skill for the right engagement, the quality will suffer.

By: Francine

Francine — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:47:27 +0000

@Tony Rezko

Two answers:

1) Partners who are talking are the ones who saw significant drop so partners at top (who aren’t talking) can maintain payouts at near recent levels.
2) Litigation, litigation, litigation. Lots of settlements, bigger amounts. Maybe more reserves.

Francine

By: Tony Rezko

Tony Rezko — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:33:19 +0000

I have a question inspired by a comment on Going Concern for partner pay. At GC, a KPMGer mentioned that there was a lot of talk of partners making 20-30% less in 2009, however, revenue was not down nearly that much, and it turns out partners may have made near their full payouts (compared with 2008).

At D&T, we’re told global firms saw a 4.9% drop in revenue (and part of it is exchange rates), while audit remained virtually flat. Now I’ve heard rumors of the same 20-30% drop in partner pay here at D&T. If we had similar revenues, coupled with aggressive cost-cutting and fewer partners, wouldn’t the bottom line have been (mostly) preserved? For the partners lucky enough to survive the cutbacks – and I know they’ve felt the pain too – life isn’t that bad during our historic crisis.

I might be missing something, but nothing a little transparency would not clear up.

By: Honesty_please

Honesty_please — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:54:47 +0000

What’s the average or median figure anyway, I am curious

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:16:59 +0000

Couldn’t be any more accurate. Now if only the Big 4 leadership could figure it out.