KPMG Revenues Increase 14.5%, Some Credit Crisis Impact, BRICs Shine

KPMG just announced today its 2008 revenues, which have increased 14.5% from US$19.8 billion to US$22.7 billion for the year ending September 30, 2008. In local currency terms growth was only 8.4%, the difference of 6.1% being attributable to the declining US dollar against all major world currencies in this period...



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KPMG’s 8-Point Prescription for Managing Through Economic Crisis

On KPMG’s home page, we find an interesting prescription for strategic management through these tough times, much like a top-tier consulting firm would provide in their CEO glossies, entitled, “The subtle art of turning round your business in a storm.” The article is a good read, since it has lots of real-life companies which exemplify each action...

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BearingPoint Delisted from NYSE, Stock Less Than a Nickel!

Earlier, we had blogged on how BearingPoint’s stock had fallen below 20 cents a share, clearly others were also taking notice. Just days ago on November 13, 2009, BearingPoint, Inc. received notice from NYSE Regulation, Inc. that the NYSE had decided to suspend BE's common stock from trading prior to market opening on Monday, November 17, 2008. The NYSE based its decision on the "abnormally low" trading price of BE common stock, which closed at just 7 cents on November 12, 2008. Further, BE had previously fallen below the NYSE's continued listing standard for minimum average closing price of $1.00 over a consecutive 30 trading day period and minimum average market capitalization of $100 million over a consecutive 30 trading day period...

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PwC Opines on Healthcare Policy in an Obama Administration

During one of the most riveting election campaigns in recent times, President-Elect Barack Obama has achieved a historic landslide victory.

Now comes the tough part. Delivering on his promises in a tough financial environment...





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KPMG Survey Finds EU Heading Rapidly Towards Recession

KPMG finds the European Union is quickly heading towards a recession. The recently published KPMG Business Outlook Survey, which questions 2,800 service sector firms all across the Union finds that the 12-month outlook for business activity has turned negative. Moreover, activity is expected to decrease on both volume and revenue fronts, and disturbingly, every non-price measure has fallen into negative territory, including new business, employment, profits, capital expenditure and outsourcing...

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PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst And Young Become TARP Auditors

Just a few days ago, the Treasury Department of the United States Government announced it had hired two of the Big Four firms, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young to help the government implement the $700 billion bailout program aimed at Wall Street and the economy...

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KPMG Asia Pacific Chairman Becomes New Deputy Chairman of International Firm

KPMG just appointed John B. Harrison to a newly created and critical position in firm management. Harrison 52, will become deputy chairman of KPMG International. He was most recently chairman of KPMG’s Asia Pacific region and co-chairman of the KPMG China and Hong Kong SAR firm with Carlson Tong, 53. Harrison will continue to hold both positions through March 2009, when his terms expire. Harrison joined KPMG London in 1977 with a B.Sc. in Mathematics from Durham University...

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BearingPoint (NYSE: BE) stock price drops to 20 cents!

We blogged earlier that BearingPoint stock had touched its all time low of 50 cents a share in September. But that was before the current meltdown in the financial markets, with today’s (October 9, 2008) shocking drop in the Dow of ~ 700 points, BearingPoint’s stock has fallen further amazingly to an even lower all-time low of 20 cents, touching at one point an intra-day low of 17 cents.The entire company’s market capitalization is now only about $40 million, this for a consulting firm in annual sales in excess of $3 billion...

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Ernst and Young Revenues Rise 16%, Retains Third Place in Big Four

Another Big4 firm reports good performance.

Today, Ernst & Young reported that its worldwide revenues increased to US$24.5 billion for the fiscal year ending 30 June 2008, rising 16.2% in dollar terms and 9.5% in local currency terms from the previous year’s revenue of $21.1 billion. Major factors included gaining new clients, new services sales and ROI in emerging markets, offset somewhat by “audit efficiencies enabled by the new US internal control standard” (which we would assume are clients automating their processes and relying less on E&Y) and economic slowness in many markets...

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KPMG Holland Give “Green Light” to Join KPMG Europe

KPMG Holland reported today that its 208 partners had agreed to join KPMG Europe which was established in 2007 and contains the list of British, German, Swiss and Spanish firms. In 2007, KPMG Holland had voted against the merger. But now, the Dutch firm chairman Herman Dijkhuizen cited internationalization, specialization and seamless service as key drivers for this change of heart...

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PricewaterhouseCoopers 2008 Revenue Up 14%, Maintains Top Position

PricewaterhouseCoopers just released its 2008 revenue figures for the year ending June 30, 2008. Global revenues were US$28.2 billion, increasing at 8% at constant foreign exchange rates and 14% at variable exchange rates, since the US dollar plummeted against foreign currencies during this period. In USD reporting terms, 2008 revenues of $28.2 billion did grow 14% from 2007 revenues of $24.7 billion. With this, PwC remains the top dog among Big Four firms...

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Big Four Take Leadership Role in World Economic Forum

The Big Four firm Chairmen are key players in the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of New Champions in Tianjin, China. Deloitte and Touche, Ernst and Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers are key Mentors of the program, while KPMG was noticeably missing...

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Accenture (NYSE: ACN) Q4-2008 Profits Shine, Stock up 6% in Down Market

And The Accenture Machine Keeps Rolling On!

Crisis? Slowdown?

What crisis? Where slowdown?

You would not believe your senses on Accenture’s results reported yesterday. Q4-2008 profits of 57 cents grew 34% from 50 cents from prior year quarter and actually beat analysts' expectations by a penny. The company forecasts further growth in the year ahead. According to Accenture, more clients are looking for its consulting and outsourcing services despite a weak economy and terrible financial markets...

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BearingPoint (NYSE: BE) Stock Price Hits All Time Low – 50 Cents

On September 19, 2008 just a week ago, BearingPoint (NYSE: BE) stock hit a new 52 week and all-time low of just 50 cents a share. Based on the 218 shares outstanding, the market capitalization on that day was only $109 million. Add this to about $650 million in debt to come to an enterprise value of $759 million...



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Nomura Buys Lehman Brothers Europe for $2, PwC Adminstrators

Earlier, we had blogged about Nomura of Japan buying the equities and investment banking business of Lehman Brothers Europe for an undisclosed amount. PricewaterhouseCoopers UK were appointed the administrators of this bankrupt firm to assure an orderly disposal...

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Big Four Make Working Mothers Magazine Best Companies List

Three of the Big Four firms have made the Top 10 of the latest Working Mother magazine rankings for Best Companies for Working Mothers. Ernst and Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers made it into the elite group of 10 best companies which provide mom-friendly part-time career paths for working mothers. Deloitte and Accenture didn’t make the top 10 but surely made in the top 100. BearingPoint was conspicuously missing, and Capgemini didn’t make the list either, more so since it didn’t fall into the covered US company universe...


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PwC Administrators Help Sell Lehman Europe to Nomura

As we blogged earlier, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP are the joint administrators to Lehman Brothers International Europe (‘Lehman Brothers’), and today’s announcement on the PwC UK website and over all financial newswires generally is that the investment banking and equities businesses of Lehman Brothers are being sold to Nomura of Japan. The deal covers investment banking and equities in the Netherlands, Qatar, Dubai, Kuwait, the U.K., Italy, Germany and Sweden, but excludes trading assets or trading liabilities...

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US Financial Crisis Impacts Big Four Firm Audit Fees

The current financial crisis in the US has taken a big toll on some storied companies in the recent few months, with unimaginable consequences for the entire financial sector. Consider this:

FannieMae (NYSE:FNM) and FreddieMac (NYSE:FRE) are now under US government conservatorship

Bear Stearns (NYSE:BSC) was purchased for a pittance by JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM)

Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER) sold itself to Bank of America (NYSE:BAC)

Lehman Brothers went bankrupt recently (NYSE:LEH)...

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PricewaterhouseCoopers Winds Down Lehman Brothers UK

Following the still-surprising collapse of Lehman Brothers over last weekend, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP was appointed as joint administrators to Lehman Brothers International (Europe) the following Monday, September 15, 2008. Specifically, four PwC partners Tony Lomas, Steven Pearson, Dan Schwarzmann and Mike Jervis have been appointed as leaders of this effort to wind down the business in an orderly fashion...

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Deloitte USA to Layoff 900, 2% of US Staff, Impacted by Economy Slowdown

We are a little late on this, but WebCPA and Wall Street Journal report that Deloitte USA plans to layoff 900 staff or about 2% of its 45,000 US employees, according to their spokesperson Deborah Harrington. There seems to be no official statement that at least we can find on the Deloitte.com website. But we finally did personally see the Wall Street Journal article...

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Big Four Firm Get Top Spots in Business Week Best Career Companies Ranking

Great news for Big Four Alumni! You made the right choice for your career.

Business Week Magazine just came out with its list of “100 Best Places to Launch A Career in 2008.” And all four of the Big Four firms this year are in the top 5 of that list, the only other is the ultra prestigious investment banking firm of Goldman Sachs...

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KPMG’s World Job Fair on September 24th – Attend Right from Your PC!

We were browsing KPMG’s website and came across the upcoming KPMG World Job Fair, virtually available on the internet from 24 to 26 September 2008, and an interesting event for all Big4 alumni who wish to learn more about KPMG people and career options...



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PricewaterhouseCoopers Reorganizes into Clusters, Hints at Structural Changes

PricewaterhouseCoopers recently announced a structural change in their organization structure, with network firms being organized into three major geographic “clusters” starting as early at October 1, 2008. PwC’s intent for this change is “to increase further its focus on emerging markets, which it believes will be the engine of much of its future growth - allowing greater flexibility and speed when making both investment and acquisition decisions.”...

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SEC Fines Ernst and Young $2.9 Million for Independence Violations

The SEC has sanctioned Ernst and Young $2.9 million for being “engaged in improper professional conduct” and in violation of several rules and acts, specifically the Exchange Act § 4C and Rule 102(e) of the Commission’s Rules of Practice. Rule 102(e) and Exchange Act Section 4C. E&Y shall pay the SEC $2.9 million, composed of disgorgement of $2.4 million and prejudgment interest of $0.5 million...

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Accenture Furthers Its Green Initiatives – Getting on Company’s Agendas Through IT

Accenture recently announced its Accenture Green Technology Suite, which is a comprehensive set of tools focused on helping companies assess its environmental standing, provide recommendations to better manage its carbon footprint through effective IT management and supporting the entire organization’s green agenda...

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Club Med? No! Euro-Mediterranean . The next investment frontier

Ernst & Young’s BaroMed survey has recently found that the Euro-Mediterranean zone has good potential for significant growth opportunities for international investors. This zone has 17 countries: France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Malta, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Syria. This group ranks third among the world’s regions in terms of GDP and among the top three for foreign direct investment (FDI)...

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Deloitte First Out of Gate with 2007 Results: Revenues Up a Staggering 19%

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu ("Deloitte") just came out with its fiscal year 2008 aggregate member firm performance for year from July 2007 to June 2008. Global revenue increased from US$23.1 billion in FY2007 by 18.6% in U.S. dollars, and 13.0% in local currencies to US$27.4 billion, marking an amazing sixth consecutive year of U.S. dollar double-digit revenue growth from continuing operations. Growth was seen in each and every service line and geographic region delivered strong growth. The global slowdown seemed to have no effect on this tremendous growth performance...

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KPMG Predicts Slowdown in Global Mergers and Acquisitions in 2008

KPMG's Global M&A Predictor anticipates that the global deal environment will likely deteriorate into the second half of 2008, with both deal value and volume with forward-looking corporate valuations down 10% compared to just 6 months ago. The firm’s predictor shows a decrease in both ‘appetite’ (forward valuations) and ‘capacity’ (estimated net debt to EBITDA) for M&A activity...

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Accenture Stock Shines Brightly Compared to Big4 Peers

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has proven its solid business model with investors by producing the best shareholder performance in comparison with its other Big4 siblings, Capgemini (PARIS: CAP.PA) and BearingPoint (NYSE: BE)...

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10 Million Wealthy Folks Own An Astounding $40 Trillion!

The recently released 12th annual World Wealth Report co-authored by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch has some amazing findings:

The number of global high net worth individuals (HNWIs, with wealth greater than $1 million) rose 6% in 2007 to 10.1 million, and the number of ultra high net worth individuals (Ultra-HNWIs, with wealth greater than $30 million) increased by 8.8%. For the first time in the history of this report, the average assets held by HNWIs exceeded US$4 million. The combined assets of HNWIs now exceeds $40 trillion!...

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PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Celebrates Tens Years By Giving Generously

Tens Years of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP!

Hard to believe, but it’s been a full decade today that Pricewaterhouse LLP merged with Coopers and Lybrand LLP to form PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, now the largest single accounting firm on the planet and the leader of the Big Four firms...

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Big Four Firms Dominate Professional Service Rankings

The Big Four Firms - PwC, D&T, E&Y, KPMG and Accenture have taken the top 5 revenue spots in a recent global professional services report released by Managing Partners Forum. BearingPoint is number 24 while we couldn't quickly spot CapGemini in this list. Here are some impressive (rounded) numbers..

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Accenture Blows Away Analyst Expectations, Stock Zooms!

As we blogged yesterday, the bar was set high for Accenture (NYSE: ACN), but the firm had no problems surpassing that threshold. Strong financial results for the Q3-2008 (ended May 31, 2008) of net revenues of $6.10 billion, 20% year-over-year increase in U.S. dollars and the highest quarterly net revenues in the company’s history; combined with an record EPS of $0.74, up 36% from Q3-2007 blew away analyst expectations...

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Deloitte's WIN Blog Passes On the Torch

We have blogged before about Deloitte’s Women’s Initiative Network (WIN) blog pioneered by Cathy Benko who went public in January 2007 and wrote heart-warming, insightful, tell-it-like-it-is posts, many times going against the corporate grain. Her veracity and everyday humor added color and perspective to what professional women face at Deloitte and perhaps at other organizations. Most of all she had courage, and wasn’t afraid to say what was on her mind...

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Accenture’s Steady Results Move Stock up 18% in 2008

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) is set to report its third quarter 2008 earnings (March, April, May 2008) tomorrow June 26, 2008 to Wall Street and has scheduled a conference call at 4:30 PM EST (800-288-8968) to discuss these results with investors...

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PwC Study Mainstay for TechCrunch Social Network Valuations

There’s a new blog post today at TechCrunch where Michael Arrington indicates a dollar enterprise value for different social networks based on the recent implied valuations of Facebook ($15 billion), LinkedIn ($1 billion) and Bebo ($850 billion)...

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KPMG Finds Corporate Investments Balance to Shift Considerably

A recent KPMG International survey shows that the winds of global corporate investments are going to change in favor of the developed world. This mirrors the shift in the balance of global economic power, that we all know anecdotally, is finally making its impact...

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Big Four Firms Have Top Spots as Desirable Employers

The Universum USA survey of most desirable employers from the perspective of over 40,000 US undergraduates conducted from December 2007-April 2008 puts the Big Four Accounting Firms within the top 20...



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Deloitte Remains Embroiled in Parmalat Saga

Remember Parmalat ? the Italian diary company which plunged into spectacular bankruptcy in 2003 when it collapsed under a huge debt burden of EUR 14 Billion. Since then, the company has restructured and relisted in 2005 in Milan...

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Big Four Firms Contribute GBP 100,000 Each to New Center

After much study, The International Centre for Financial Regulation with a goal to "
establish a unique centre of excellence...to understand and explore the contribution
that efficient systems of financial regulation make to global growth, including in

developing economies." is moving fast to be a global influential institution in the city of London, UK. 

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PwC People Blog On, Humanizing the Organization

Some months ago, we looked at who is blogging from inside at the Big Four firms. Our survey indicated blogs at Accenture (NYSE: ACN), Capgemini, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Deloitte & Touche LLP, and one by KPMG LLP's Chairman.

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Deloitte's New Innovative Pro Bono Program



 Deloitte just announced a new way to help society. Its vision is laudable - " transform the way the organization supports charitable organizations and strengthens the nonprofit sector". This emulates other result-oriented charitable organizations such as the Gates Foundation, where charitable contributions are made with clear line of sight to outcomes and return on initial investment.

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All Big4 Firms On Fortune's 100 Best Companies To Work For

All Big Four firms recently made it to the recent Fortune magazine's listing of Top 100 US Companies to work for. This ranking is highly anticipated and widely quoted. Deloitte even carried a press release on their inclusion on their website.

Leading the pack in the list was Ernst and Young at #57, followed by KPMG at #71, PricewaterhouseCoopers at #90, and Deloitte at #95.

And here are more interesting numbers from the report. Keep in mind that these are the US firms of the larger international Big Four partnerships, and while some numbers pertain to the US, some others (such as revenue) are for the global firm:

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GAO Finds Big4 Audit Share is a Whopping 98%

The US Government Accountability Office just released a very interesting report on the state of the Audit industry as it relates principally to the Big4 audit firms and their smaller-sized competitors. This is a complex area and the GAO study attempts to address many of the intricate dimensions, including questions such as:

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E & Y Spells Out the Top 10 Risks for Global Business

In a recent fascinating study, Ernst and Young spells out their findings on the top strategic risks facing global businesses, based on discussions with 70 top risk analysts.

These Top 10 are:

1. Regulatory and compliance risk
2. Global financial shocks
3. Aging consumers and workforce
4. The inability to capitalize on emerging markets
5. Industry consolidation/transition
6. Energy shocks
7. Execution of strategic transactions
8. Cost inflation
9. Radical greening

10. Consumer demand shifts

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