Investment Week (August 23)
In early August, the Bank of England predicted “increased gas prices would cause inflation to rise above 13% by the end of the year.” The consensus is worse. “Goldman Sachs and EY forecast UK consumer price inflation would reach 15%, and Bank of America projected it would peak at 14% in January.” Citi bank has gone further and “riled markets” by forecasting “UK CPI to hit 18.6% in January… beating the 1979 peak when CPI hit 17.8% following the OPEC oil shock.” A recession looks all but inevitable.
Tags: Bank of America, BOE, Citi bank, Consensus, CPI, EY, Forecast, Gas prices, Goldman Sachs, Inflation, Markets, Oil shock, OPEC, Peak, Recession, UK
Financial Times (December 9)
“The Big Four accounting firms have recorded their strongest financial performance since the collapse of Enron as corporate clients rushed to transform their businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.” Revenues soared to over $167 billion, collectively, in spite of “continued criticism of the structure and performance of the firms, especially in audits, including scrutiny of EY’s failure to identify fraud at Wirecard.”
Tags: Accounting firms, Audits, Big Four, Clients, Collapse, Coronavirus, Criticism, Enron, EY, Failure, Financial performance, Fraud, Pandemic, Revenues, Scrutiny, Transform
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
