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...

We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

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...

We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

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...

  We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

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...

We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

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...

We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

All Big Four Firms Make The World’s Top 50 Most Attractive Employers List

We have blogged earlier about Universum, the employer branding company, particularly on their MBA and undergraduate surveys of top employers. The Big Four firms, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Accenture typically make the top ranks in their surveys.

We’ve moved. Click here to go the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

Big Four Firms Dominate UK’s Large Cap Market, Is Big Three Possible?

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the UK’s independent regulator responsible for promoting confidence in corporate reporting and governance just published its Fourth Progress Report on the implementation of the MPG recommendations on Promoting Choice in the UK Audit Market.

While the report generally deals with progress on a number of FRC’s key strategic initiatives, there is a very interesting analysis on the concentration of the auditing market in the UK which is dominated by the Big Four firms, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers....

We’ve moved. Click here to go the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

Deloitte Revenues Grow 1% Local Currency, Now Just Behind PricewaterhouseCoopers

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, the global firm, just came out with its fiscal 2009 revenues for the year ending May 31, 2009. 2009 full year global revenue was US$26.1 billion, an actual increase in local currency terms of 1%, but a drop of 4.9% in US dollar terms from 2008. The tough economic climate and appreciating US dollar were the two main factors in 2009 which impacted Deloitte as much as it did other Big Four firms...

We’ve moved. Click here to go the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

Our Twitter Feed Ranked as Top Five for Accounting Jobs by Dow Jones WSJ

We were recently, and unexpectedly, surprised by our ranking by the well respected FINS.com as one of the “The Top Five Twitter Feeds for Job Hunters in Accounting”. We are thankful to FINS for recognizing our Twitter and web efforts towards the Big Four firms alumni community...


 We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com! 

Asia Pacific Uber Rich Suffer A Lot In 2008, But Roar Back Quickly

We have blogged earlier about the fascinating results of the 2008 Capgemini Merrill Lynch Global Wealth report, where high net worth individuals (HNWIs – net assets greater than US$1 million) and ultra-high net worth individuals (Ultra HNWIs – net assets greater than US$30 million), the uber-rich of the world, lost a cool $8 trillion of wealth from 2007 to 2008...

We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

PwC FY 2009 Revenues Rise Modestly From FY 2008 Despite Tough Environment

PricewaterhouseCoopers just released its FY 2009 global revenues for the year ending June 30, 2009, which came in at US$26.2 billion, a 7.1% decline from the US$28.2 billion in FY 2008 in US dollar terms. However, on local currency terms FY 2009 revenues were actually higher than FY 2008 by a modest 0.2%. These results were clearly impacted by two large macro factors. The global economic crisis put a sudden halt to the multi-year annual growth in revenues as clients withheld spending on professional services. The other impact was FX, as the appreciating dollar over the reporting period resulted in lower US dollars for each unit of local currency leading to a reduction in revenue on US dollar terms from FY 2008 to FY 2009...

We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

Deloitte Finds Business Tribalization Gathering Momemtum, Still Ways To Go

Tribalization of Business?

Really??!! Are we going a few hundred years back in time?

It really appears so. Social media is here to stay and becoming more mainstream each day, and smart businesses better adjust to this new reality....

We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

SEC’s Strategic Plan Seen to Support IFRS Transition and PCAOB

The Securities and Exchange Commission just released its 2010-2015 Strategic Plan with some broad objectives to focus on securities compliance fostering and enforcement. The US SEC has been under considerable attack since it missed one of the world’s largest $60 billion Ponzi schemes operated by Bernard Madoff. Apparently, there were five particular instances over the years where the SEC could have caught Madoff had they pursued either their own processes or followed through on tips provided to them. Refocusing on enforcement is clearly goal number one...

We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

IPO Activity Rises in Q3-2009, China Leads in Numbers and Deal Value

Ernst & Young just released its eagerly awaited Global IPO report, an analysis which is very topical today to validate the recovery seen in capital markets throughout the world. Results from this surveys in recent quarters have been quite glum, as companies and investors stayed away from initial public offerings. But this latest Q3-2009 report appears to have a much more positive spin, in line with other concurrent financial and Big4 surveys which indicate that things may finally be turning around towards better times...

We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

Accenture Q4-2009 In Line, But Sober Outlook Below Investor Expectations

Accenture just reported its fourth quarter of 2009 and full year of 2009 results at 4 pm on October 1, 2009.  billion (versus $21.58 Wall Street expectations), a 8% decrease in U.S. dollars and flat in local currency. EPS of $2.44 plus $0.24 impact from the restructuring charge for total of $2.68 (versus $2.68 Wall Street expectations) compared with $2.65 in fiscal 2008. New bookings were $23.90 billion. Operating income was $2.64 billion, and operating margin was 12.3%. Absent the restructuring charge, annual operating income was $2.90 billion and annual operating margin was 13.4%...

We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

Ernst and Young UK Reports Excellent Results, Beating Rival Big Four Firms

The Times of London just came out yesterday with Ernst & Young’s UK results (surprisingly, we couldn’t find it on the E&Y UK website)...


We've moved. Click here to go to the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

Ernst & Young: External Challenges Drive Flat Revenue From FY 2008 To FY 2009

Ernst & Young just reported its combined worldwide results for the year ending 30 June 2009 (FY09), the first Big4 firm to report its global results.

Combined global firm revenues of US$21.4 billion for the fiscal year ended 30 June 2009 (FY09) decreased a modest 0.2% in local currency terms from the comparable period in FY 2008. In FY 2008, E&Y reported US$23.0 billion in global revenues, and in US dollar terms, the revenue actually declined 6.8% from 2008 to 2009. This shows the dramatic effect of the appreciation of the US dollar in this period against foreign currencies. In other words, one unit of foreign currency translated to much fewer US dollars in the FY 2009 fiscal year compared to the FY 2008 fiscal year. We have highlighted growth in both local currency and US$ terms in our analysis.

We’ve moved. Click here to go the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

Police Raid Ernst & Young HK Office in Akai Case

We highlight a breaking news story happening on the other side of the world, in Hong Kong the police yesterday raided the offices of Ernst & Young, the erstwhile auditors of Akai. Akai was the largest corporate collapse in Hong Kong, with similarities to the Enron case in the United States. This story is making current headlines in the small city state, making the first page of the influential South China Morning Post and also reported on Bloomberg Asia and Bloomberg.com’s home page today. 

We’ve moved. Click here to go the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

KPMG: Tax Authorities, Looking For Cash, May Push Transfer Pricing To Front Burner

Transfer Pricing (TP), or the setting of intercompany prices of goods and services transported across country borders by the same company is typically an esoteric tax issue which garners little attention under normal conditions. But as KPMG recently points out in its recently released Global Transfer Pricing Review, the tough economic environment is leading many governments to seek out new sources of tax by extending and tightening controls over cross-border transactions between companies within the same group.

We’ve moved. Click here to go the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!

Deloitte Predicts Flat 2009 US Holiday Retail Sales, And A Lonely Mall Santa

Though there are many signs of economic rebound as we have seen from many recent Big4 firm surveys which are indicating consumer confidence, business recovery and overall growth. But there are equally troublesome spots which are looming on the horizon which say that the recovery is not going to be robust or as smart as everyone would like it to be.

Here’s a somewhat somber forecast from Deloitte on 2009 US holiday sales which is getting a lot of media play.

We’ve moved. Click here to go the full post at the new Big Four Blog at Big4.com!