Accountancy Matters

The North West is flourishing

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:42:31 GMT

OK, I'm setting myself up here but in the wake of last week's somewhat incendiary Policy Exchange report that some northern cities had 'lost much of their raison d'être' I can confidently assert that the North West is flourishing....

The North Westy is flourishing.

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:42:31 GMT

Connolly vs. the rest

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:10:51 GMT

Stat of the week: John Connolly's £5.7m earnings for leading Deloitte last year exceeded the fee income of the UK's 71st largest accountancy firm. The 22% growth in his earnings was in excess of the expansion rate posted by every...

Insolvency takes on corporate finance in big six face-off

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:10:04 GMT

Have you noticed how half of the top six accountancy firms are now run by ex-insolvency practitioners after the recent rash of appointments? A coincidence in these troubled times? I doubt it.New BDO managing partner Simon Michaels was previously national...

'Being a public company FD is a thankless task'

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:35:53 GMT

Ocado finance director Jason Gissing is one of the more quotable FDs around. So it was no surprise that his comments yesterday on the relationship between the delivery service that he steers and Waitrose, its food supplier, were widely picked...

Just how unattractive is London as a place to do business?

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:31:17 GMT

How quickly times change. I was in China three years ago when all the talk was of how Chinese companies were ruling out US listings because of the increased red tape there, most vividly represented by the Sarbanes Oxley Act....

An equal opportunity

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:41:07 GMT

Trevor Phillips, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, is on the prowl; sitting on Andrew Marr's sofa yesterday and writing in the FT this morning. And the points he makes are interesting, given all I've written recently about...

Newman leaves the blogosphere

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 06:42:52 GMT

Farewell to Jeremy Newman, who stood down as BDO Stoy Hayward's UK chief on Friday. And farewell too to his blog. Launched in 2006, Newman was the first large firm managing partner to blog. Sadly, as Newman heads off into...

Will PwC's next ten years be as profitable?

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 07:49:41 GMT

Happy birthday to PwC. Happy birthday to PwC. Happy birthday to Pw-Cee. Happy birthday to PwC.Today marks the tenth anniversary of the merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand (remember them?). It should be a cause for celebration. And...

Protection racket will fall on deaf ears

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:18:32 GMT

There's more noise around the issue of protecting the word accountant. ACCA member Alan Shooter has set up an online petition on the Downing Street website and a month on from its creation, he has attracted 50 signatures. He is...

CSR will be first victim of the downturn

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:16:48 GMT

I'm speaking at the Oxford Union tonight in a debate entitled, provocatively, corporate social responsibility will not survive the economic downturn. I'm speaking for the motion that many companies will water down their current commitments as they seek to reduce...

Who should audit green reporting?

Fri, 23 May 2008 15:33:54 GMT

There’s a green buzz in the air again and even though the debate is somewhat fledgling, it already seems like much has changed. Where before the expectation was that green individuals would pressure companies to change, it appears to me...

How to keep the regulators away

Fri, 23 May 2008 13:00:19 GMT

'Auditors located farther away from the SEC's 11 regional offices are less independent from their clients, because they feel less likely to get caught and punished for misdeeds, according CFO.com. The findings apply particularly to non-Big Four audit firms, 'which...

Dispatches from Instituteland

Mon, 12 May 2008 17:13:47 GMT

I thought I'd kick off an occasional series of posts rounding up what's going on at the accountancy institutes. Who knows, if it gets enough interest we may even turn it into a separate blog. (Does that sound as unlikely...

PwC's diverse graduate intake

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:19:45 GMT

Looking at the backgrounds of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ latest graduate intake is both revealing and encouraging, demonstrating – hopefully - the diverse direction in which the profession is heading....

Personal finance advice, the FD way

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:29:06 GMT

My recent post on one finance director’s domestic money management skills has elicited a number of off-blog responses. You might recall that after his wife was told by Citibank that her credit card would not be replaced after it expired...

Debate debate debated

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 09:23:57 GMT

I sense the debate around the quality of research that the profession is producing will only intensify. ICAS chief executive Anton Colella has picked up on it in one of his first blog posts, a point further developed by Dennis...

Another chief executive blogs

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:57:24 GMT

Congratulations to Anton Colella. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland chief executive has launched a blog. In doing so, he is following in the footsteps of his ICAEW equivalent Michael Izza. Arguably they, and BDO chairman Jeremy Newman, are...

Europe gets it wrong on bureaucracy

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:42:19 GMT

Poor old FEE. The European accountancy body doesn't get an awful lot of attention so it would have been hoping that some of the 500 or so journalists who were sent its latest press release yesterday would have picked up...

Smoke and mergers

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:26:41 GMT

Today's restructuring by Ernst & Young might be more interesting than it is significant. The firm is following in the footsteps of KPMG and Deloitte in 'merging' some of it practices though in scale it may take gold. It proposes...

Today Programme gets down to business

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:05:15 GMT

I didn't want to blog on this straight away, but hasn't the Today Programme improved since Evan Davis joined at the beginning of the month? The celebration of ignorance when it comes to business matters has eased and interviews on...

FD turns tables on bank

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:27:44 GMT

With all the news recently about credit card issuers dropping cardholders who pay their balances in full at the end of each month, a reader has sought to turn the tables. A thoroughly reputable finance director, not given to hysterics,...

The accountant as saving grace

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:14:59 GMT

I hadn't expected an accountant to crop in Mark E Smith's autobiography. But reading an extract of the soon-to-be-published tome this morning, there one was. Anyone familiar with the influential band The Fall and its absrasive lead singer would have...

Jobs safe, starting salaries to fall

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:46:38 GMT

Despite often feeling the pinch first in tough times, there's little evidence so far of a slowdown in the accountancy recruitment marketplace. Recruitment consultant Hays reported upbeat numbers this morning and said accountancy and finance recruitment - in terms of...

Lawyers beat accountants in the blogging game

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 08:18:20 GMT

I'd love to know how many UK accountants / firms blog and so track it over time. According to research just published in the US, lawyers are stealing a March on accountants Stateside. I say research. Law firms have been...