Financial Times (May 3)
“The trio of bank failures since March has cast a pall over KPMG’s lucrative business as the largest auditor of the US banking sector.” SVB, Signature and First Republic all “had one thing in common: KPMG” and the auditor will be facing “scrutiny in aftermath of their collapses.”
Tags: Aftermath, Auditor, Bank failures, Banking sector, Collapses, First Republic, KPMG, Lucrative, Pall, Scrutiny, Signature, SVB, U.S.
Institutional Investor (May 23)
Autonomous driving (AD) will transform society and it could prove the best (or worst) of times for insurers. Nobody really knows. “Futurologists assert that the safety advances and insurance industry disruption caused by AD technology will be unlike any since the advent of automobiles in the late 19th century. According to KPMG, over the next 25 years, there will be an 80 percent decline in accident frequency.”
Tags: Accidents, Advances, Automobile, Autonomous driving, Cars, Disruption, Futurologists, Insurance, Insurers, KPMG, Safety, Society, Technology
Financial Times (May 10)
The auditing sector is undergoing a “pitch battle” with new EU regulations that require companies at least tender their audits every 10 years and change auditors every 20 years. “So far the result has been a merry-go-round of audits swapping between the Big Four—PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG—which handle 98 per cent of FTSE 350 audits and 95 per cent of those for Fortune 500 companies.”
Tags: Auditors, Audits, Big Four, Deloitte, EU, EY, Fortune 500, FTSE 350, KPMG, PwC, Regulations, Tenders
Financial Times (July 29)
Regulators need to achieve “a complete redesign of audits and the way auditors deliver them.” Currently, auditors provide questionable value. “Did auditors give shareholders any advance warnings about failures and losses at Royal Bank of Scotland, Northern Rock, Anglo Irish, MF Global, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, AIG or Barclays? US companies spend nearly $50bn annually on the ‘Big Four’ (PwC, Ernst & Young, Deloitte and KPMG) but the auditor rarely speaks or is questioned at annual meetings.”
Regulators need to achieve “a complete redesign of audits and the way auditors deliver them.” Currently, auditors provide questionable value. “Did auditors give shareholders any advance warnings about failures and losses at Royal Bank of Scotland, Northern Rock, Anglo Irish, MF Global, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, AIG or Barclays? US companies spend nearly $50bn annually on the ‘Big Four’ (PwC, Ernst & Young, Deloitte and KPMG) but the auditor rarely speaks or is questioned at annual meetings.”
Tags: Audits, Big Four, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, PwC, Regulators, Shareholders
