JD Sports-owned Go Outdoors on brink of administration, with 2,400 jobs on the line June 21, 2020 Go Outdoors is said to be teetering on the brink of collapse, after the JD Sports-owned retailer was reported to be calling in administrators. JD Sports has lined up Deloitte as administrator to the company, which employs about 2,400 people across 67 stores, according to reports. Go Outdoors, which sells bikes, tents and waterproof clothes, [...]
Lookers shares suspended as results delayed by accounting probe July 1, 2020 Car dealership firm Lookers today had its shares suspended from trading after failing to publish its final results due to an ongoing accounting probe. On Monday, the company said it had identified a £19m hole in its accounts after a number of years of overstated profitability. As a result, Lookers was unable to publish its [...]
Big Four continue to dominate FTSE 100 despite growing pressure March 2, 2020 The dominance of the Big Four serving the FTSE 100 continued in the first quarter despite growing regulatory pressure. The Big Four were the only auditing firms to serve the FTSE 100 last quarter with PwC retaining the top spot with 27 clients, closely followed by KPMG’s 26. Deloitte and EY served 25 and 22 [...]
City of London braces for coronavirus: Banks, insurers and audit firms activate contingency plans March 5, 2020 With health secretary Matt Hancock warning that the UK should prepare for “widespread transmission” of coronavirus, City of London firms have braced for impact. Banks, insurers, law firms and accountancy giants have dusted off contingency plans, instituted travel bans and cancelled events to try and mitigate the effects of the coronavirus outbreak. HSBC and Deloitte [...]
Weekend Read: Fostering a company culture in a hybrid world June 26, 2021 After three lockdowns, more than a year of home working and an unprecedented vaccine rollout, firms of all sizes are slowly, cautiously, reopening and welcoming staff back to the office. But this mass return to the traditional workplace will be tough for managers and leaders on a number of levels. Motivation levels may be low, [...]
Accenture to cut up to 900 UK jobs as coronavirus bites July 1, 2020 Consultancy firm Accenture is planning to axe up to 900 jobs in the UK as the firm tries to cut costs to deal with the coronavirus crisis and an uncertain future. Accenture is a US firm headquartered in New York, but it employs more than 10,000 people in the UK. The job cuts are part [...]
Insurance, disrupted: What does the start of 2021 tell us about the industry? January 29, 2021 We waited patiently for the new year. January was meant to be a fresh dawn, with many businesses embarking on transformation programmes to emerge stronger from the pandemic. But, looking at the economic and political events from this month, we see more disruption ahead. Particularly for insurance companies. Before founding OLIVER, I spent 15-years at Commercial [...]
PwC refuses to audit miner Petropavlovsk amid board room battle July 28, 2020 Big Four auditor PwC has said that it will not work with gold miner Petropavlovsk due to concerns over corporate governance at the FTSE 250 firm. Since early July, the Russian focused miner has been gripped by infighting, with two rival groups of shareholders battling for control of the company. At the firm’s last board [...]
UK consumer confidence lifts at end of 2019 January 27, 2020 UK consumer confidence rose at the end of last year, signalling a more optimistic start to the new year. Consumer confidence in the fourth quarter rose 0.5 per cent to minus 8.7 per cent compared to the previous quarter and 2018. Sentiment on the overall state of the economy jumped 27 percentage points on the [...]
Third of UK audits fail accounting watchdog’s quality tests July 14, 2020 Britain’s accounting watchdog today said that a third of audits by the UK’s seven main accounting firms failed quality tests this year, amping up pressure for widescale reform in the sector. The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said 29 of 88 audits carried out by Deloitte, PWC, EY, KPMG, BDO, Grant Thornton and Mazars this year [...]