Long awaited audit reforms could start this year, says audit watchdog boss March 5, 2020 The long-promised reform of the UK audit sector could start this year with voluntary changes by the Big Four accounting firms, the audit watchdog said today. The collapse of outsourcer Carillion in 2018 prompted three reviews of the sector and two years on there have been calls from MPs and industry figures to speed up [...]
City Moves for 1 October 2018 – who’s switching jobs at Deloitte, Cambridge Economic Policy Associates and Bailey Montagu Executive Search? October 1, 2018 Today's City Moves cover advisory, consulting and executive search. Take a look at these movers and shakers: Deloitte Deloitte has appointed Chris Graves as a partner in its advisory corporate finance practice. Chris will lead the firm’s technology, media and telecoms (TMT) mergers and acquisitions (M&A) team. Chris joins Deloitte today from GP Bullhound, the [...]
Robot rollout: Number of businesses using automation doubles in 2019 September 6, 2019 The number of businesses adopting automation at scale has doubled in the last year, though most say they have yet to assess how this could impact their employees. Roughly eight per cent of companies have deployed over 50 cases of automation this year, twice as many as in 2018, according to a report by Deloitte [...]
K&K Property Holdings makes London debut with £130m Covent Garden deal December 18, 2019 Hong Kong’s K&K Property Holdings has made its first investment in the London market with the acquisition of an office block in Covent Garden for £130m. Tenants in the 90,916 sq ft tower include co-working firm The Office Group and Marathon Asset Management. Read more: Central London office take up surges as fintech sector grows [...]
Stubhub hit with legal threat over ‘misleading’ ticket sales January 29, 2020 Stubhub is facing legal action from the competition regulator over claims the ticket reseller misled customers. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched a wider crackdown on the secondary ticket market amid concerns many websites are a hotbed for ticket touts. But the regulator said it was concerned that Stubhub was not complying with [...]
The Week Ahead: ITV, Rolls Royce, Morrison, ECB and UK GDP data March 8, 2021 It’s Monday morning. City A.M. looks ahead at what this week has in store. China Trade for February This morning – The Chinese economy finished 2020 on a strong note, its surplus hitting a record high in December. Exports rose by 18.1 per cent, slightly down from November’s 21.1 per cent but still better than expected, [...]
EY partners set to take pay cut after growth slows November 19, 2019 EY UK partners are set to take a pay cut this year after the audit firm today announced anaemic revenue growth of 1.5 per cent. Average partner pay for the year ended 30 June slipped to £679,000 from £693,000 the previous year. The firm said investments in tech and audit quality and an increase in [...]
Audit regulator proposes challenger firms get larger share of the work January 25, 2020 The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has proposed a regime to the government that would see challenger firms outside the so-called big four auditors be given a substantial proportion of the audit work of major British companies. The accounting regulator has drawn up plans behind closed doors that would require all but the very biggest FTSE-350 [...]
Government cyber programme unveils new intake of scale-ups January 15, 2020 The London Office for Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement (Lorca) has today announced the 20 latest scale-ups to join its cohort of cyber firms. The government-backed incubator said its fourth intake was the largest to date, and includes companies using automation and quantum to protect UK industry against online threats. Though the majority of businesses are British, [...]
EY appoints audit chief to run UK and Ireland business March 12, 2020 EY has picked its audit chief to run its UK business, continuing the Big Four’s woeful record of senior female leadership. Hywel Ball, who has been with the firm for 35 years, was today appointed as UK and Ireland managing partner from 1 July, succeeding Steve Varley. Ball’s selection over potential female candidates continues the [...]