DEATH of Aurther ANDERSEN

CNN | March 13th | LOU DOBBS

[antaresequity]

along with 15% of KPMG

Yep...this is far from over...S&P PE at 62:1...give me a break...thats a cap weighted index....

What are the sheep saying....rally...recession over...recovery.....blah blah blah...

Step right up while the Pro's short into ya...LOL

[antaresequity]

ANTARES = Heart Star in the constellation Scorpio

[Roger_W_Isom]

Citigroup APPEARS to be one of the COS. that created ENRON or HELPED to ......and THUS it TOO is looking at problems if this continues to balloon....

[SouthCarolinaKit]

But the rumor what not Earnt & Young's acquiring AA but Touche Ross. Have they bowed out, too? This collusion between accounting firms and clients can be fixed only if the requirement is added that these relationships must be changed every 2 or 3 years. Then the accountants will be checked by their replacement firm. Otherwise, the money is too good apparently to avoid payoffs!

[truth_seeker]

Andersen is a firm of 90,000 people, dozens of divisions and hundreds of offices. They aren't all like that Texas Audit office.

Have you ever heard of "company culture" and "institutional memory?" The other offices may not be just like Houston. But it could be reasonably expected that making liberal interpretations of standards, shredding documents, etc. are okay--it is the AA way.

An acquiring firm gets the accounts (profitable), the employees, the lawsuits and liabilities. As it is now, when engagement contracts with clients come up for renewal, some AA clients are dumping them. If Ernst & Young were to acquire AA, EY's existing clients might look at them differently. That is why they are a problem--lawsuits, iability and image.

[PRND21]

Sorry for the hiccup posts.

[Roger_W_Isom]

By the way does ANYBODY knows how high up the food chain on the top four YOUNG is THANKS in ADVANCE people!!!!

[Willie Green]

the belief that current uses of scarce resources must be superior to what will follow if those resources are released.

Out of curiosity: what constitutes "scarce resources" in this scenario?
Shady bean-counters are a dime a dozen!

[Chemnitz]

Don't forget that AA OK'ed the Baptist Foundation in Arizona, a vast ponzi scheme, right into bankruptcy. AA just settled for several hundred million bucks. I seldom hear much sympathy for ordinary Baptists who were promised enormous returns, turned over all their savings to the foundation, and lost it all. That is a true betrayal. I think anyone could see that Enron was odd, with its commercials of a man in a metal suit crying "Why? Why? Why?"

The WS Journal said AA was once the gold standard in auditing. The whole purpose of a CPA (public accountant) is to make sure that public companies are properly financed. Greed changed that into giving a stamp of approval on shady dealings. This is yet another outgrowth of the Clinton-greed years. No, it's not all Clinton's fault this time, but he set the standards at rock bottom.

[freedomlover]

"reporing that ERNEST YOUNG "

That's Ernst & Young.

You missed an excellent chance to add: , KNOWWADDAMEAN?

[SauronOfMordor]

That 15% figure I gave for KPMG, upon checking, seems to be just for my relative's Government Consulting group. Overall, KPMG is cutting 5% of its worldwide workforce, according to an article in Computerworld's latest issue

[Roger_W_Isom]

If I were the Mid level people after hearing of THIS news I'd have to start getting my resume in order and start thinking of going INDEPENDENT now.....

[Utopia]

LOU DOBBS is reporing that ERNEST YOUNG one of the TOP FIVE ACCOUNTING FIRMS HAS REFUSED TO ACQUIRE AA!!!!!
Why would Ernest Young want to acquire AA? Afterall, they're already getting their customers.

[Roger_W_Isom]

if YOU were a shareholder in KPMG and heard THEY were in talks abouting acquiring AA how would YOU like to hear that JUICY bit of news!!!!!!:-)))) facing a ROOT CANAL would be more pleasant I BELIEVE:-)))))))

[L.N. Smithee]

I was watching Baseball Tonight on ESPN yesterday, and they had a commercial showing two baseballs with Don Mattingly's signature. One was signed by Mattingly, and the other wasn't. The point was, how can you tell the diff if you are a collector?

The answer: Authentic collectables have a cool holographic sticker on them, signifying that Arthur Andersen certifies that Don Mattingly or whoever really signed the ball.

Oops. That's an error on the advertiser.

[KC Burke]

These firms are almost all LLC Partnership firms. The merger of Price Waterhouse and Coopers Lybrand required the enfolding of puchased partners to keep equity in the firm...very convoluted.

Only about half of Andersen's business is audit business as I recall. Many of the firm's divisions work in different fields like Consulting, Collection, Tax Policy Analysis etc.

I am simply amazed that many posters here think there is any difference between big accounting firms. Some how A. Andersen is a big bad Dirty Finacial Firm and punishment and blame are going to make them feel better about the world.

All of the big corporations such as Enron have their creative accounting schemes and it is only good management, not auditors, that keep it in check. Auditors are only able to look for purely cooked-books like the Pharmor Pharmacy chain a decade ago when the head guy was stealing the money of his own firm to buy WFL teams etc.

Andersen is just a media and congress-critter fall guy.

[Jaded]

Wait, never say it is so, that AA is only used by crooks. Lee Brown stands behind AA and the city of Houston still uses them. He'd stake his reputation on AA's credibility.

/sarcasm off

[antaresequity]

ENRON was what the securities industry is...A self indulgent sub-culture that sees no bounds of morality...

ENRON is a blip on the radar...a micro blip...but if you look at ENRON...you will see the whole scam that the securities industry is...

They are all crooks...Anderson...Enron...Market Makers...UnderWriters....the whole thing is set up to fleece the public...

I am amazed that the "focus" on Enron and Anderson hasn't moved to the real culprit of this scheme...the industry itself and its sub-culture.

Why do you think they issued upgrades when the market was tanking? Where do you think the smart (inside) money was? IT WAS SHORT FOR CHRIST SAKE! Why do you think they kept issueing upgrades? SO THEY COULD SHORT INTO THE SHEEP!!!...

Enron was nothing more than a corporate daytrader playing with leveraged and risky positions...AA helped them....nothing more....

KEEP YOUR EYE ON INDUSTRY! Enron and AA are indicative of a far greater problem...The rest of the boys in the club are plenty pissed off for the spotlight that ENE and AA brought...they will deflect and obfuscate....WATCH THE INDUSTRY

[GovernmentShrinker]

No, it's the unknown liability that's too high (in fact, the asking price is probably the proverbial one dollar). AA has attempted to find an insurer to insure a buyer against liability stemming from AA's past activities. The financial press is reporting that all insurance companies have turned them down. Without insurance, and with the very real possibility that several more $billion+ problems are just waiting to be discovered, nobody wants the Andersen entity even for $1.

The head of one of the other Big 5 is reported to have stated the obvious: "I just want their accounts and their talent (paraphrasing from memory). Those are readily available without purchasing the firm. The accounts are fleeing faster than anyone can keep track, the "talent" which worked on those accounts will be promptly laid off, the firm which picks up each client will try to pick up the "talent" which is already familiar with the client, and most of said "talent", being unemployed, will jump at the offer. AA is likely to become a corporate shell consisting of nothing but a huge pile of known and potential liabilities, and it will die slowly and quietly in the file cabinets of various bankruptcy courts.