BDO, Stevenson Lead in Q3

For the fourth quarter in a row, Top 10 Firm BDO USA led large audit firms in new Securities and Exchange Commission audit clients, with 13 new engagements and a net gain of eight in the third quarter of 2015. (See “Q3 Client Gains & Losses.”) 

BDO’s new engagements were a mix of organic and merger-based; it brought in four new clients through its merger with Florida’s Cross, Fernandez & Riley, but several others came from the Big Four and other large firms.

Tampa, Fla.-based Stevenson & Co., meanwhile, led the overall charts with 14 new and net for the period. Those numbers also gave it the lead in signing up smaller reporting companies. (See “Net Engagement Leaders” and “Audit Leaders.”) The overwhelming majority of its new clients came from previous auditor DKM CPAs, which is withdrawing from SEC-related audit work.

A similar situation helped propel Heaton & Co., in Farmington, Utah, up the lists this month: it drew in a large chunk of its new engagements from Salt Lake City’s Anderson Bradshaw, which is also withdrawing from SEC work. In fact, this quarter’s rankings were significantly affected by firms that have put in for de-registration with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, according to the audit blog The Auditor Carousel: Clients gleaned from the pending de-registration of New England’s Shatswell, McLeod & Co., for instance, helped Baker, Newman & Noyes net eight new engagements, while orphaned clients from DeJoya Griffith continue to boost other firms’ totals.

MORE LEADERS

Big Four firm Deloitte, which was among the strongest performers on the list with 10 new engagements and seven net, topped our rankings of both new assets audited and new audit fees. (See “New Client Leaders.”) $38 million of its $46 million in new assets was electric services company PPL Corp.; no other client contribution came close. PPL contributed the most in audit fees, at around $8.2 million, but electricity-test instrument-maker ITron Inc. came close with $7.8 million.

Deloitte was second in new market capitalization audited, at $30 billion; PPL accounted for $22 billion of that. But Ernst & Young took the top spot in new market cap, with $45 billion -- $43.5 billion of which came with satellite TV provider DirecTV. That engagement helped EY come in second in terms of assets audited and new audit fees.

Data for the quarterly rankings are provided by Audit Analytics, a premium online intelligence service delivering audit, regulatory and disclosure analysis. Reach them at (508) 476-7007, info@auditanalytics.com or www.auditanalytics.com.