Saturday, August 18, 2007

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP UK turnover up 6%, profits grow 11%.


PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP United Kingdom recently reported a 6% increase for FY 2007 turnover to £2.1 billion. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP FY07 financial year runs from 1 July 2006 to 30 June 2007...





Tuesday, August 14, 2007

BDO Seidman Ordered to Pay $521 Million Fine


We have a story about one of the Big Six, and it appears that the risks of doing business as Big Four auditors are not confined to them alone.


BDO Seidman has been ordered to pay $170 million in compensation and $351 million punitive damages. The charges: being negligent to show fraud in Bankest, a financial services company owned by a Portuguese bank, Banco Espirito Santo. A six member jury decided that BDO was guilty in one hour, having found it grossly negligent in June...


Wednesday, August 08, 2007

CapGemini CTO Ponders on Mass Collaboration


Open Source Innovation and Alumni Mass Collaboration


We have mentioned Big Four in-house bloggers earlier and in particular Andy Mulholland, CTO of CapGemini, and here is an interesting recent blog from him, where he notes that mass collaboration amongst a multitudes of experts can enable exponential advances in research frontiers (Wikinomics). Here is the link to the post. The rest of the blog is good reading too...




KPMG Finds Chemical Mergers On the Upswing

KPMG recently released a report on global Chemicals M&A activity, with a particular emphasis on Europe. World chemicals sales in 2005 were a whopping EUR 1,476 billion, with the EU accounting for 30% of this total. 13 of the top 30 companies in the world, accounting for 15% of chemicals sales have HQs in Europe...




PricewaterhouseCoopers Involved Deeply in China Olympics


PricewaterhouseCoopers Audits 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games


We are exactly one year away from a special date in one of the rapidly growing economies of the world.

08/08/08 marks the opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China....




Deloitte Finds US Multinationals With Domestic Focus


A Deloitte study finds that US multinationals still have a domestic mentality regarding compensation despite their rapid globalization.

The recently released International Stock Plan Design and Administration Survey, released by Deloitte Tax LLP along with the National Association of Stock Plan Professionals, had a number of interesting findings...







BearingPoint Files 10-K for 2006, but Investors Wary


A few weeks ago, BearingPoint (NYSE:BE) filed its 10K for 2006, later than what the SEC allows for companies to file after the end of their fiscal year, but none the less good timing for BE given their past history. Most of the numbers were known to investors anyway so this was a formality. In terms of Q1-2007, BearingPoint indicated lower quarterly sales than the previous year, but mildly better than the previous quarter. Of concern is the voluntary turnover rate of almost 25%, indicating that one-fourth of the professional population is leaving each year, what is not reported is the turnover by managerial grade. Headcount was also lower in the quarter, which means that BE is hiring less than the turnover rate...