“In my opinion, KPMG will resign the engagement if there is reason to doubt management integrity, and will not be rushed into issuing an audit opinion by NASDAQ-listing deadlines needed to avoid Overstock.com becoming a Pink Sheet or Bulletin Board stock.”
~ Howard B. Sirota, former lead counsel in Crazy Eddie class action suits
As we anticipate the greatest thing to happen to Broadway since George Bush’s penis, we now know who will play the most important role of the entire production: numbers magician Andy Fastow.
The honor goes to Stephen Kunken, best know for his role as James Reston in Frost/Nixon. He will be alongside Norbert Leo Butz who will be playing Jeff Skilling.
We located the list of the cast for the London production of Enron and there is a role for “Arthur Andersen” and two for “Lehman Brothers” so these key roles still need to be filled.
Back to the future Tony winner; we don’t envy the research that Kunken has ahead of him since we’re assuming that he’ll have to channel the book cooking prowess of AF. Then again, since he’s an actor, he only has to pretend to know what he’s talking about with regard to accounting and financial reporting; there’s accountants out there doing that every day.
Kunken Will Play Enron CFO on Broadway [Playbill]
Does Jerry Springer know that his fat twin is a billionaire?
This is Guy Hands, Founder, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Terra Firma a private equity firm with locations in London, Frankfurt, and Guernsey where he currently resides.
He moved there last April from Kent, a county in Southeast England, to “protest at higher income and capital gains tax rates,” and that “he has ‘never visited’ his school age children since he left the [the United Kingdom]. They have remained with his wife at their former family home in Kent and they now have to travel to Guernsey to see him.”
James Gansman, a former E&Y partner in transaction services, was sentenced to one year and one day in jail on Monday after being convicted on six counts of securities fraud last year.
Gansman had provided his mistress, Donna Murdoch, with tips on mergers that Ernst & Young were advising which she subsequently traded on. Despite the help, Murdoch needed more money and she began an affair with another man who used the tips to make trades.
To add insult to injury, Murdoch ultimately cooperated with investigators and testified against Gansman. She is still awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to fifteen charges of securities fraud, obstruction of justice, and making false statements.
Beside making bad relationship choices, Gansman’s hot tips were in violation of E&Y’s “written policies and the duty of trust owed to the firm’s clients.” That extra day in prison should give him just enough time to study better decision making.
Ex-Ernst & Young Partner Gansman Sentenced To 1 Year, Day In Prison [WSJ]
Here it is the second week of February and we’re concerned that many of you are working too hard. We’re guessing that many of you are already having nightmares about your senior/manager/partner putting condiments all over your work and then eating them while you watch in horror.
However your busy season is going, we here at GC decided to put our heads together to give you a list of some of the things about busy season that make it such a bitch; not to remind you of them but to let you know that we feel your pain. These appear in no particular order and were created by our own sick minds so if anything is missing you’ll have to point out the omissions.
• Gaining weight – Unless you’re a die-hard gym rat, your exercise regiment has probably been paired back significantly. Combine that with the all the cheap soda and takeout you’re eating on a nightly basis, that button on your pants is hanging on for dear life.
With all the outrage around big bonuses more executives (read: Jamie, Lloyd) will be getting larger portions of their payouts in the form of equity. This is good news for those of you that can’t get enough of FAS 123(R) or Topic blah blah blah in the codification.
Morgan Stanley is looking for an associate or senior associate to join their financial controllers group that will specialize in compensation reporting, preferably a CPA or CPA candidate with proficiency in equity-based compensation plans.
Get the details after the jump.
Bush's yardage vs. Kim's bust and hips
Melancholy, indigestion and cocktail flues aside, the other certainty that comes with the SB is gambling. And we’re not talking friendly-poker-game gambling, we’re talking recklessly wagering on every single aspect of the biggest spectacle in sports gambling.
Tim Geithner has inadvertently given his endorsement to standardized financial regulation around the globe, so is he also giving the adoption of IFRS in the US his approval?
Possibly, since he told ABC that “he wasn’t worried that tighter financial regulation would put U.S. banks at an international disadvantage. ‘I’m very confident we can make sure that we are working very closely to raise global standards around the world so we have a level playing field,’ Geithner said.” His motivations are only slightly suspect. Why?
Under IFRS, assets are overstated as derivatives are measured in gross exposure, as opposed to GAAP which concerns itself with net value. More magic financial reporting; of course Geithner would want to see banks magically healed by a change in accounting. If we’re going to do it, let’s also restate years 1999 – 2009 so we can compare at least.
Isn't this a nicer picture than one of the firm's leaders?
Well, it’s official. RSM McGladrey and McGladrey & Pullen are back together, having signed a new definitive agreement and putting the brief fallout behind them.
In a statement released by RSM McGladrey on Friday, both firms made good on their promise to kiss and make up after announcing there intentions to do so in December.
Both RSM President C.E. Andrews and M&P Managing Partner Dave Scudder are putting this whole misunderstanding behind them.
• European Union, China Resist PCAOB Audit Inspections [Compliance Week]
PCAOB inspectors have had a helluva time getting access to the necessary information they need in Europe and China and it has caused the international inspections to fall way behind. Because they wanted to be upfront about it, the Board issued a list of the firms that should have had inspections performed in the past four years.
The majority of the firms on the list are international affiliates of the Big 4 and many of the remainder are affiliates of second-tier firms like Grant Thornton and BDO. The PCAOB didn’t give any particular reason that it was being stonewalled in its press release last week, just that “information necessary to conduct inspections was, and continues to be, denied”.
