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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2 comments:
hm how about the layoffs that happened at E&Y FSO days before Lehman's Bankruptcy???? aka me.
Is this the reason that the Big 4, D&T in particular are low balling fees? I recently saw D&T bidding $15k for audit and tax work at a medium size private software company (they had proposed $110k just last year). This is a market share grab and D&T trying to compensate for substandard work in the Silicon Valley. Do they realize they are hurting the auditing industry (fair fees for quality service)? It is also part of increasing bait and switch tactics being employed by firms (the Big 4 in particular) where they hold clients hostage for overruns and/or increase fees substantially in future years. The Big 4 need to get their respective houses in order...contract if you need to, but in an orderly way. Laying off 10-20 people at a time so you don't need to call it a layoff or fly below the radar is no way for any self respecting person to conduct business.
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