Audit & Accounting

Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins said he plans to leave the SEC at the end of his term, the latest in a string of departures for the commission.

iPro One has reached an agreement to purchase an ownership interest in HbK Sorce Financial, an investment advisory and wealth management firm with more than $1 billion in assets under management.

Amper Politziner & Mattia has merged with Goldenberg Rosenthal to create one of the largest regional firms in the Northeast.

Genworth Financial Investment Services has launched a new section of its Web site dedicated to practice management.

Three accounting firms based in Jackson, Miss., are combining with CPA firm BKD LLP.

Big Four firm KPMG could potentially face negligence litigation stemming from its audits of New Century Financial, the troubled mortgage company that collapsed last April, according to a report from an examiner for the bankruptcy court.The examiner, Michael Missal, a partner with Washington, D.C.-based law firm Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis, said in a 580-page report that KPMG “failed to exercise due care in planning and carrying out its audits and reviews, failed to demonstrate appropriate professional skepticism with respect to management’s judgments, and failed to obtain sufficient competent evidence to support its opinions and representations to the company’s officers, directors and shareholders.”

I recall a discussion in the mid-1990s as though it were yesterday.A case was made that dynamic hedging meant that everything would work out in the end and hence should not be reflected to have either gains or losses in a given reporting period.

AUDIT QUALITY GETTING BETTERSarbanes-Oxley has led to big improvements in audit quality, according to a newly released survey. Seventy-eight percent of the 253 public company audit committee members surveyed by the Center for Audit Quality rated overall audit quality as either “very good” or “excellent.” Meanwhile, 82 percent said that it has improved somewhat or significantly in the past several years.

Because we produce 22 columns a year, we’re always looking for topics. Some come from readers, others from students, and some we pluck out of midair. For this column, we thank Allan Sloan, who published a piece called Buy High, Sell Low in the Feb. 4, 2008, issue of Fortune magazine.Sloan’s article skewers the managers of the “Wall Street Four” — the large investment banking/brokerage/etc. conglomerates, including Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS.

As an accountant, you observe your clients’ business successes and failures every day. However, many accounting firms struggle in their efforts to deliver financial planning services profitably.Why?