The auditing and consulting company EY is driving the discussion about reorganizing the profession of auditors and consultants.
Because at the top of the international EY network, plans are being discussed to separate auditing from the consulting business.
EY boss Carmine di Sibio justified the considerations in an internal memorandum from last week quoted by the Reuters news agency as wanting to improve the quality of auditing of company balance sheets.
Mark Fehr
Editor in Business.
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EY sent the memorandum to its employees in response to media reports that the company was considering spinning off its testing business.
However, according to di Sibio, no such decision was made.
Officially, EY has only said this much so far: It routinely evaluates strategic alternatives in order to strengthen the quality of auditing and all other services in the long term.
The process is still at an early stage.
Significant changes to the structure would only be implemented after consultation with the regulatory authorities and only if the international EY partners agree.
Should the high-growth consultancy go public?
As the "Financial Times" reported at the weekend, EY's considerations also include an IPO of the consulting business or its partial sale to investors.
According to the newspaper, 166,000 of the 312,000 EY employees worldwide work in consulting, which generated sales of 26 billion dollars in the past financial year.
In the event of a spin-off, the testing business with a turnover of 14 billion dollars would probably remain in the hands of partners, i.e. the responsible executives.
There are prominent examples of partnership organized IPOs, such as the investment bank Goldman Sachs in 1999 or the consulting firm Accenture in 2001. Accenture was originally a sister company of the Arthur Andersen audit network, which was founded more than 20 years ago because of its involvement in the Enron accounting scandal internationally disappeared from the scene.
Since the end of Arthur Andersen, only four auditing and consulting networks have dominated the international market.
These are PWC, KPMG, Deloitte and of course EY.
What is currently being discussed behind the facades of EY should also concern the other large and international testing groups.
The four find themselves in the same situation, dealing with accounting scandals and allegations of lack of independence.
The internationally changed rules also affect them all.
With around 600 partners, the German branch of EY is an important part of the international EY network and is one of the top five revenue generators.
EY Germany is also represented on the international management committee of the network.
German EY partners were responsible for auditing the annual accounts of the scandalous company Wirecard, for which the company is not only heavily criticized.
The auditing authority APAS is also investigating EY and responsible employees.
In addition, the company is faced with claims for damages from Wirecard victims.
Away with the Wirecard legacy?
One can assume that the discussed separation of auditing and consulting should look like a convenient way, at least for the EY consultants, to free themselves from the financial and reputational legacy of the auditing division.
The investor lawyers Schirp & Partner are already warning that the specific consequences of separating the auditing and consulting business for the EY companies and their creditors are currently difficult to assess and wonders whether EY wants to limit its responsibility for the Wirecard disaster.
According to what has been heard so far, EY does not justify the spin-off considerations with the Wirecard scandal.
Instead, the possible step should help both the testing business and the consulting to more growth.
After a separation, the consultants could accept assignments from companies where the auditors are currently conducting annual audits.
On the other hand, auditing and advice are not possible under one roof at the same time, which limits the scope for winning lucrative mandates.