Sunday, November 29, 2009

Deloitte Versus KPMG in Dubai World Saga





Just in the last few days, Dubai World (DW) shocked investors all across the world in announcing that it will take steps to seek a six month standstill period on payments of interest and principal on $59 billion of its outstanding debt. This terse and surprising announcement on late Thursday November 25, 2009, the eve of a national holiday in Dubai, spooked stockmarkets all over the globe, with Asian and European markets reacting immediately on open with a 3% drop, before recovering somewhat over the day on Friday...




Monday, November 23, 2009

Ernst and Young’s Top Entrepreneurs Maintain Vision Despite Tough Conditions




Entrepreneurs are hardy folks. Undeterred by current circumstances, they are entirely focused on their vision and a rosier tomorrow.


And in this deep and difficult recession, Ernst & Young found that entrepreneur-driven companies are still looking for growth and opportunity in these tough times by adapting their operating methods to set themselves up for market leadership when the economy does turn to the upside...



Monday, November 16, 2009

Deloitte Finds 2009 Holiday Shoppers Will Use A Lot More Social Media




Deloitte’s recently published 24th Annual Holiday Survey of retail spending and trends vindicates what you are likely seeing all around you. Consumers are expected to increasingly use social media for their holiday shopping this year...




A Wake-up Call For America



We saw this on the Grant Thornton home page, and the title was so tantalizing, it was too good not to dig in and blog about it.


This recently released study by David Weild and Edward Kim indicates that a sharp fall in US publicly listed companies is generally driving a depression in US stock markets and further, that it has inhibited economic recovery, impaired the job market and undermined U.S.competitiveness. The deep underlying cause for this – severe changes to the market structure over the last twenty years...





Monday, November 09, 2009

Checkout Our “The Best Of “Twitter Lists – Love Your DM or RT


Twitter just released its latest exciting functionality - Twitter Lists, and we think it’s awesome and very timely.

It allows us to curate who we think are the most appropriate Tweeters to follow in our niche space of The Big Four Firms, accounting, finance, tax, jobs and related topics...



Saturday, November 07, 2009

Top Companies in Deloitte’s 2009 Tech Fast 500 Sport Phenomenal Sales Growth



Recently, Deloitte released its 2009 Technology Fast 500 Rankings, an annual ranking of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America...





Thursday, November 05, 2009

Huron Consulting Group Q3-2009 Operations Strong, Shares Zoom




Huron Consulting Group Inc. (NASDAQ: HURN) just reported its Q3-2009 results, with revenues of $172.2 million increasing 2.1% from $168.7 million in Q3-2008 and up sequentially from $165.8 million in Q2-2009. However, more importantly, Huron took a $106.0 million non-cash pretax goodwill impairment charge, about 20% of the total goodwill balance of $506.5 million as of June 30, 2009. In addition, there were restructuring and restatement charges of $15.1 million. The GAAP loss per share including the aforementioned charges was $(3.16) in Q3-2009 compared to diluted earnings per share of $0.12 in Q3 2008...



Capgemini Q3-2009 Revenue Down 9%, But Confirms 7% Operating Margin for 2009



Capgemini just reported its Q3-2009 financial results with revenues of EUR 1,946 million, which was 9.0% below Q3-2008 revenues of EUR 2,098 million on constant exchange rates. On a reported basis revenues were 7.3% lower. Capgemini attributed this to a decline in the economic environment, and a sharp reduction in corporate IT spending...