We just talked about PricewaterhouseCoopers’ 13th annual global CEO survey, which showed a remarkable improvement in CEO confidence this year as compared to last year 2008....
Friday, January 29, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
KPMG Predicts Modest Uptick in Global Mergers and Acquisitions
With the new year 2010 just open, the forecasts for the year ahead have started.
First out is KPMG’s Global MA Predictor which estimates that M&A appetite and capacity will move up in the next 12 months, with increased forward PE ratios from a year ago pointing to a higher deal-making appetite. Furthermore, the capacity to do deals is heightened by a decline in net debt to EBITDA ratios from earlier levels....
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
PricewaterhouseCoopers Finds CEO More Confident, Hiring
PricewaterhouseCoopers typically releases its 13th Annual Global CEO Survey (1,200 CEO interviews in Q4-2009) in sync with World Economic Forum at Davos.
Last year, CEOs were feeling insecure and diffident about the future of the global economy and of their companies...
Apple iPad Priced at $499, Impact on Deloitte Study
So Apple just announced the price of the iPad at $499 and that it will be available in March and April 2010.
We earlier had speculated a price of $1,000 and 20 million units, at half the price, lets assume that price-elasticity moves the numbers sold to 35 million (Note that Apple just announced it had sold 250 million iPods), the incremental sales are $17.5 billion, that's only a few billion below our previous number....
Deloitte Expects Tens of Millions iPads Sold
Apple just today displayed to the world its much anticipated ipad tablet PC, with Steve Jobs wowing the crowd with its amazing functionalities. Finally, speculation on the name was laid to rest - the ipad is just a vowel away from the ipod! Boring as the name is, the potential for this device is simply huge...We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Scammers Attack PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte
It appears that scam artists have latched on to Big Four firms.
At this time, we see that PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte are the victims of two publicly known attacks....
Deloitte Is Top Hedge Fund Service Provider Of Big Four Firms
We see from a recent press release that Deloitte was selected as the top Big Four accounting firm service provider by hedge funds with $1 billion or more in assets, ranking second overall, in the Institutional Investor 2009 Alpha Awards. Deloitte has now ranked first among the Big Four in five consecutive years...
Deloitte, Ernst and Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers At Davos 2010
The World Economic Forum starts tomorrow Wednesday January 27, 2010 for four jam-packed days of the world’s most powerful and influential leaders from industry, government, academia and non-profit organizations. The sessions cover an extraordinary variety of interesting topics and bring together the planet’s best minds to discuss, debate, validate and set forth actions to improve human life and sensibility...
Friday, January 22, 2010
All Big Four Firms Are Best Companies To Work For In 2009
All the Big Four firms recently made Fortune’s 2009 “100 Best Companies to Work For” list, though not at the very top as we have become very accustomed to seeing in BusinessWeek or Diversity or Working Mothers magazine. Nonetheless a very creditable performance against a tough crowd of equally impressive and quality peers. 2009 sported tougher competition as three of the five firms dropped rank from the 2008 listing...
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
PricewaterhouseCooopers Gains Top Rating From Gartner
We see from a recent press release that PricewaterhouseCoopers has received a “Strong Positive” rating in Gartner’s Global Finance Management Consulting Services MarketScope Report, which was published recently on December 21, 2009...
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Accenture’s Animal Ads: Can Dancing Elephants and Jumping Frogs Help?
About four weeks ago, on Sunday December 13th, 2009, Accenture ended its six-year sponsorship of Tiger Woods. We had blogged extensively on this topic:
On December 9th, we argued that Accenture should not continue sponsorship on moral grounds and should be the first to drop sponsorship...
Friday, January 08, 2010
Auditor Merry Go Round at Overstock.com
We were intrigued by a recent quote from Overstock.com's President.
On December 29, 2009,we saw, "It is nice to be back with a Big Four accounting firm," said Jonathan Johnson, President of Overstock.com. "We are pleased to have the resources and professionalism that KPMG brings as our auditors. We will work closely with them to timely file our 2009 Form 10-K. In the meantime, we remain in discussions with the SEC to answer the staff's questions on the accounting matters that lead to our filing an unreviewed Form 10-Q for Q3."...
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
THE 2009 BIG FOUR FIRMS PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
THE 2009 BIG FOUR FIRMS PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
An Analysis Of The 2009 Financial Performance Of The World’s Largest Accounting Firms
By Big4.com
January 2010
THE 2009 BIG FOUR FIRMS PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
________________________________________
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
2009 was a difficult year overall for the Big Four accounting firms: Deloitte, Ernst & Young (E&Y), KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), as their financial performance was affected by tough external conditions, slow global economic growth, cost-conscious clients and sluggish merger and acquisition activity....
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Capgemini Employee Shareholding Plan A Success, Our Math Shows Why
In November 2009, we had reported on the our news feed on Capgemini’s effort to launch a shareholding plan for its employees, with a maximum of 6,000,000 shares reserved for their employees, opening on November 17, 2009 and settlement-delivery of these shares to occur on December 16, 2009...
Friday, December 18, 2009
Big Ernst and Young Settlement on Bally Fitness, Large Implications
This is the leading item on the SEC.gov website today, with the SEC charging Ernst & Young LLP and 6 current and former partners for their roles in the accounting fraud at Bally Total Fitness Holding Corporation...
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Accenture Q1-2010 Revenue Short But EPS Beats Street. Good Outlook
Accenture Q1-2010 Revenue Short, But EPS Beats Street. Good Outlook
Accenture (NYSE:ACN) just reported Q1-2010 results after market close today. The full earnings release is available on the Accenture.com investor relations site. We will only provide our quick analysis here at this time...
KPMG 2009 Revenues of $20 B Drop 11%, Most Among Big Four Firms
KPMG just reported its 2009 combined revenues for the fiscal year ending 30 September 2009 of US$20.11 billion versus US$22.69 billion for the prior 2008 fiscal year. This was a 11.4% decline in U.S. dollars terms and a 2.6% decline in local currency terms...We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
KPMG Europe Revenues Drop 0.4% As Expected, Audit Shines
KPMG Europe LLP, which covers the UK, German, Swiss, Spanish and Belgian practices just reported its 2009 revenues at €3.5 billion in the year ending 30 September 2009, a 0.4% drop from 2008 on a pro forma basis at constant exchange rates. Overall, KPMG said that top-line growth proved hard to come by as a result of difficult market conditions...
Monday, December 14, 2009
Big Four Firms Dominate Best Places to Intern Rankings
If you want to find a great job upon graduating from college, then starting early appears to be the secret.
Business Week and Bloomberg just released their third annual listing of top undergraduate internship programs in the country based on pay and the percentage of interns who get full-time jobs, and feedback from career services directors...
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Accenture Makes Right Decision, Drops Tiger Sponsorship
Just now, on the Accenture.com website Newsroom, we find the following news update:
“Accenture Sponsorship Update
Related Assets December 13, 2009NEW YORK; Dec. 13, 2009 – Accenture (NYSE: ACN) today announced that it will not continue its sponsorship agreement with Tiger Woods...
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Tiger Drops Golf, Accenture Drops Ads
Yesterday, Tiger Woods made a public statement that he was taking an indefinite break from professional golf on his home page. Much has been made of the exact words used in this statement. Regardless this was the perhaps the right (and very tough) decision to make under these trying circumstances...
Thursday, December 10, 2009
China and Brazil Lead IPO Comeback In 2009
In consonance with a smart pickup in global equity markets from a trough in March 2009 to near January 2009 values towards the end of this year, Initial Public Offerings have also gathered a lot of steam...
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Tiger Woods Dilemma for Accenture – Cloud or Cancer?
Using celebrities as company advertising fronts has both immense rewards and equally high risk. On the positive side, associating with a well-known, successful and popular personality provides instant brand recognition, enhances the company by association and quite often works off the image already created and crafted by that celebrity. The risk however is that any negative impact to that celebrity creates collateral damage for the company, and a long-term association is difficult to quickly unwind...
Thursday, December 03, 2009
KPMG Global Business Outlook Validates Current Optimism and Confidence
KPMG recently released its Global Business Outlook Survey on global manufacturing and services. And it has good news for the world economy and some unexpected surprises.
Overall, the survey indicates that, with manufacturing and service sectors getting more confident, there are robust growth prospects for the world economy over the next 12 months...
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...
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