General Electric – Here We Go Again and a Prediction

I’ve written about them before… But here we go again. In today’s FT: GE must restate earnings again “General Electric has been forced to restate earnings for the second time in 18 months after US regulators objected to the way the conglomerate had accounted for complex derivatives instruments. The decision by the Securities Exchange Commission […]

Hired Guns – Continued

I was doing some research today on who and where the readers to this blog are coming from. A little attention can cause that kind of navel gazing… I am sorry that I missed this response to a comment I made on David Maister’s blog back in October. David Maister is “The Man” when it […]

Meet Mike Rake

Arise Sir Mike, as Rake tops honours list Penny Sukhraj, Accountancy Age, 04 Jan 2007 “KPMG’s global chairman Mike Rake has been knighted for ‘services to the accountancy profession’” The legal puppet master Mike Rake Accounting’s other ‘big four’ of the year By Barney Jopson, FT.com sitePublished: Dec 20, 2006 The threat of a mishap […]

Welcome New Readers

I have seen traffic here increase substantially in the last week, thanks to two new links to this blog, one from My Daily Fatwa and one from The Daily Caveat. It is quite gratifying to have two distinguished bloggers (and professionals) consider this blog worth reading and directing their readers to. But, of course, now […]

KPMG at Center of Siemens Storm

The Siemens bribery scandal is bigger than KPMG or any of the firms, but since this is a blog about the Big 4, I’ll try to put their current status in perspective. Recent news has highlighted that the former CFO of Siemens, Heinz-Joachim Neubürger who stepped down from Siemens sometime between March and May (accounts […]

Throwing Out the Trash

CFO.Com’s Tim Reason posts on December 26, 2006 08:37am ACCOUNTING Civil Matters “Saturday’s New York Times (12/23, p B1) takes aim at the time-honored practice of describing executives as departing to “pursue other interests” or “spend more time with family.” Nothing particularly jaded about that. In a recent video interview with me, recruiter Lorraine Hack […]

Options Grants at Apple

Today’s Financial Times headlines: Apple ‘falsified’ files on Jobs’ options By Richard Waters in San Francisco Published: December 28 2006 00:21 Last updated: December 28 2006 15:08 “Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computer, was handed 7.5m stock options in 2001 without the required authorisation from the company’s board of directors, according to people familiar […]

Happy Holidays

May 2007 bring: Better numbers Swifter justice More honorable men Less self-serving leaders More transparency Less obfuscation Fewer excuses Best regards, f Thanks for subscribing to the re: The Auditors feed. Please tell a colleague about the blog. Drop me a line at fmckenna@mckennapartners.com if you have a comment or complaint.

Smaller Companies and Sarbanes-Oxley

Given all the evidence, can someone please explain to me why the SEC and the PCAOB would ever consider weakening Sarbanes-Oxley or their enforcement efforts? Maybe they like having the companies make mistakes and pay them fines? Maybe there’s even more going on that everyone would rather keep under the rug? More charges and lawsuits […]

Backdating – Now It’s The Directors’ Turn

New front in US backdating scandal By Francesco Guerrera in New York Published: December 17 2006 22:03 Last updated: December 17 2006 22:03 “More than 1,000 directors of US companies have benefited from backdating stock options to boost their pay, according to new research that is set to open another front in a scandal that […]

Is It Financial Expertise or New Blood That’s Improving Boards?

—–Original Message—–From: Roman Weil [mailto:roman.weil@chicagogsb.edu] Sent: Friday, April 15, 2005 12:27 AM To: Ms. X Cc: dcoates@gsb.uchicago.eduSubject: Doug: This is Ms. X, (the commenter from last night), who had that clever insight about its being independence, not literacy, driving our results. She wants to be in touch with us. Ms. X: You are terrific. many […]

…And Now For a Message From Our Sponsor

I want to thank you for reading this blog. The magic of the Internet and the power of search engines, in particular Google, means that people are finding this blog due to its timely and provocative topic. My purpose in writing it is two-fold: 1) I’m on my second round of building my own consulting […]