The trustees of London-based Reuters Group have given their consent to a $17.2 billion combination offer from electronic publisher Thomson Corp, based in Toronto.

On the heels of announcing its bid to combine with Reuters Group, Thomson Corp. said that its education unit’s assets will sell for $7.75 billion in cash.

Staffing provider AccountAbilities Inc. announced that it has entered into a letter of intent with Lexit Technologies Inc. for Accountabilities shareholders to receive approximately 98 percent of all common shares of Lexit, in exchange for the sale to Lexit of substantially all of the assets of AccountAbilities.

Like many of you who were once college freshman, I can vividly recall my first formalized session of “orientation,” those mandated get-togethers where a group of impressionable 17-and 18-year-olds receive a veritable laundry list from upperclassman and administrators of the do’s and don’ts in academe.

Sage Software was once a one-legged company. Well, that is more or less true in the sense that the overwhelmingly majority of its revenue came from selling product and from the services surrounding them. And however much came from services, product license revenue was still the core.

CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business, announced that its 2007 User Conference for tax and accounting professionals will be held Nov. 4-7 at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center.

On the heels of News Corp.’s bid for The Wall Street Journal, electronic publisher Thomson Corp. confirmed that it will offer $17.5 billion for the Reuters Group news service.

Among 47 industries, MBA candidates ranked accounting as the lowest-paying field in a recent survey.The average expected starting salary for MBAs working in auditing, accounting and taxation was about $64,000, according to the poll of 5,000 current MBA students. Five years after graduation, the MBA candidates expected accounting-related work to pay just over $111,000.

My generation has proven itself to be suckers for online social networks.

The Association for Accounting Marketing has released its 2006 Accounting Marketing/Sales Responsibility and Compensation Survey Results. The survey was very comprehensive, and shows an interesting snapshot of where many firms are with regard to marketing.

Effective immediately, newly credentialed New Jersey CPAs will have to attend an orientation program within six months of qualifying as a CPA.Thanks to a bill signed last week by acting New Jersey Gov. Richard Codey, the state Board of Accountancy will now get to work determining what exactly that program curriculum will include. Ralph Albert Thomas, executive director of the New Jersey Society of CPAs, which supported the bill, told a local newspaper that at minimum, the program will contain a course on New Jersey law and ethics.

The Accounting and Finance Employee Confidence Index, a measure of overall confidence among accounting and finance workers in the U.S., dropped 1.7 points, to 62.9, in the first quarter of 2007, according to a recent survey commissioned by Spherion Corp.

We hate to say how long we have been watching accounting standard-setting, but trust us, it has been a long time. Over those eons, we have been frustrated at the lack of attention granted to the interests of financial statement users and the perennial promotion of the interests of auditors and statement preparers. This imbalance simply does not work for the economy's good, because the capital markets are inefficient if users don't have ready access to the information they need for allocating capital to the right places at the right prices.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board concluded its first International Auditor Regulatory Institute last week.

Appointed to serve as the first executive director of the Center for Audit Quality, Cindy Fornelli is guiding the new organization in its mission to bolster confidence in the audit process, and to aid investors by promoting constructive suggestions for change.Still affiliated with the American Institute of CPAs, the center is the revamped version of the AICPA’s former Center for Public Company Audit Firms. The CAQ Governing Board consists of representatives from the AICPA, the major public company auditing firms and independent public members.

The New York State Society of CPAs will host the 28th Annual New York CPA Business & Technology Show & Conference on May 16 and 17 at the Hilton New York Hotel.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is soliciting nominations and re-nominations for members of its Standing Advisory Group. Created in 2003, the 31-member SAG assists the audit firm overseer in carrying out its standards-setting responsibilities. The PCAOB is currently seeking nominations and re-nominations annually to fill 15 positions. Appointments are for two-year terms. Nomination forms are available on the PCAOB Web site, www.pcaobus.org. The deadline for submissions is June 15, 2007. Appointments will be announced by the end of October, and the new terms will begin in January 2008. The group, chaired by the PCAOB chief auditor and director of professional standards, Thomas Ray, meets roughly three times a year.

The Center for Audit Quality, the group backed by the profession's six largest audit firms as well as the American Institute of CPAs, has lured aboard a pair of high-level staffers from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lori Schock, the SEC's acting director of investor education, and general counsel Robert Burns will join the new group in May. Schock will assume the post of director of outreach, while Burns becomes the CAQ's new director of research. The group, which evolved from the AICPA's Center for Public Company Audit Firms, currently has about 800 members. Its executive director, Cindy Fornelli, and director of operations, Jane Cobb, are both former senior-level directors at the SEC. Fornelli served as deputy director of the SEC's investment management division, while Cobb helmed the regulator's legislative affairs office. Fornelli and several of the CAQ board are scheduled to embark on a multi-city "listening tour" to elicit feedback from investors, regulators, academics and business leaders to hone the business reporting model.

The Internal Revenue Service is calling for nominations to its Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council, a group that provides an organized public platform for IRS officials and public representatives to discuss relevant tax issues. Applications will be accepted from May 1, 2007, through June 15, 2007. The IRSAC is comprised of up to 30 members, who are appointed to three-year terms by the commissioner. Nominations are currently being accepted for five to seven appointments that will begin January 2008. IRSAC membership includes representation from the tax professional community such as tax attorneys, CPAs, enrolled agents, enrolled actuaries and appraisers, as well as members of the large and small business communities. More information is available on the tax professional's page at www.irs.gov.

While the jump from controller to CFO may seem like a natural progression, a report from management consultancy Korn/Ferry International suggests that while controllers may posses the technical expertise to gain access to the CFO suite, their leadership skills may be lacking. The study, titled "Navigating the Uncertain Road from Controller to CFO: The Leadership Imperative," said that controllers with designs on the C-suite need to move beyond financial expertise to become "participative leaders." "Controllers can become more attractive CFO candidates by developing a critical set of behavioral skills that characterize the most successful CFOs," said Charles B. Eldridge, co-leader of Korn/Ferry's financial officers practice and co-author of the report. Other key findings of the report include: * Some 33 percent of all CFOs who had been promoted to their jobs came from the post of controller. Treasurers ran a distant second place at 19 percent. * In organizations that recruited their CFO from outside, only four percent of external hires were controllers, while 58 percent were already corporate or divisional CFOs elsewhere. * CFOs focus on "people" issues, as well as on financial ones, while controllers, by contrast, tend to be more task-focused and less inclined to build consensus. To prepare the report, Korn/Ferry's financial officers practice conducted a detailed analysis of the 2006 Fortune 500, examining trends related to the hiring and promotion of their CFOs.