McKenna Interviewed On KPMG And FIFA By The Bottom Line Canada
By Francine • Oct 19th, 2015I was interviewed by The Bottom Line magazine in Canada back in June on KPMG’s role as auditor of FIFA.
Archive for the ‘Pure Content’ Category
New Orleans January 2008: "He leadeth me beside still waters…"
By Francine • Aug 29th, 2015I went to New Orleans in January 2008 for a few weeks to work with Habitat for Humanity building new houses. Here’s a slide show of what I saw three years after Katrina in the 9th Ward New Orleans LA. Just went down on my own and joined a random group. There was still a […]
The NYDFS Case Against Promontory and the Bigger Problem of Big Four Bank Consulting
By Francine • Aug 23rd, 2015Bank regulators should start hiring the consultants that are responding to bank regulatory sanctions, consent decrees and NPA/DPA legal orders directly, and also strictly monitor them. It’s time to change for regulators to change their approach before another waste of time, money and public trust occurs.
re: The Auditors is now at MarketWatch
By Francine • May 31st, 2015May 18, 2015 was my first day on the job as a reporter for MarketWatch in Washington, DC, the sister online publication to the Wall Street Journal and Barrons that focuses on retail investors. Yes, I have taken a full-time journalism job and I have moved.
When Auditors Get Mixed Up In M&A, Smaller Clients Get Hurt
By Francine • Feb 3rd, 2015A new study says smaller public companies are paying a premium for the prestige of a Big Four auditor but the auditors are dangling small clients as chum for their large acquisitive shark audit clients.
Journalists’ Obligations In The Shareholder Value Maximization Debate
By Francine • Jan 14th, 2015I wrote about two journalists who penned sympathetic stories about shareholders and other stakeholders who can’t get their voices heard but who, in service to shorter and simpler narratives, paid short shrift to the active and contentious debate about shareholder primacy and shareholder value maximization.
Auditors Can Be Whistleblowers: A Guest Post On Recent Developments In Whistleblower Case Law
By Francine • Jan 5th, 2015Several recent developments regarding auditor whistleblowers should be of interest to internal and external auditors and compliance professionals, whether they work for a public company or a professional services provider.
“Tax Avoidance On An Industrial Scale” Says British MP About PwC’s Luxembourg Work For AIG And Others
By Francine • Dec 10th, 2014British MP Margaret Hodge grilled Kevin Nicholson, of PwC’s UK tax practice, in a Parliament Public Accounts Committee hearing on Monday. You know you’re on your “back foot” when the first thing out of your mouth has to be a denial that you lied under oath. More details about PwC’s tax avoidance scheme for audit client and US government owned AIG.
Deadline December 15: Support This University of Notre Dame Accounting Grad Salary Survey!
By Francine • Dec 10th, 2014The University of Notre Dame is conducting a large-scale study to explore accounting graduates’ first full-time employment positions and starting salaries following a degree in accounting. It doesn’t matter how long ago you graduated. All are welcome. Will you help?
Piling Up For PwC
By Francine • Nov 18th, 2014Update: The PCAOB is investigating PwC for its tax avoidance advice to Caterpillar, the Wall Street Journal is reporting. One down, more than 100+ PwC audit clients advised via Luxembourg to go…
Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) is the Transparency Reporter at MarketWatch.com, a Dow Jones publication, where her work is also featured frequently in the Wall Street Journal. McKenna had more than twenty-five years of experience in consulting and professional services including tenure at two Big 4 firms, both in the US and abroad before becoming a journalist. Look for her prior columns, 