The Big Four accounting firms

四大会计事务所

Shape shifters

变形记

With the audit market maturing, accounting firms become consultancies

随着审计业务市场逐渐成熟，会计事务所向咨询公司转型

Sep 29th 2012

2012年9月29日

IT IS hardly news that the “Big Four” accounting firms get bigger nearly every year. But where they are growing says a lot about how they will look like in a decade, and the prospects worry some regulators and lawmakers. On September 19th Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu was the first to report revenues for its 2012 fiscal year, crowing of 8.6% growth, to $31.3 billion. Ernst & Young, PwC and KPMG will soon report their revenues (as private firms  the Big Four choose not to report profits).

“四大”会计事务所几乎每年都在扩张已不是什么新闻。但是，十年后“四大”发展的方向极大地取决于目前业务增长的方向，而这也正是监管和立法机构所担忧的。9月19日，德勤全球（Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu）第一个发布了2012财年的收入报告，称其收入了增长8.6%至313亿美元。安永国际会计事务所（Ernst & Young），普华永道会计事务所（PwC）以及毕马威会计师事务所（KPMG）随后将会发布各自的收入报告。（作为非上市企业，四大会计事务所选择不发布利润报告）

For all four, Asia is a bright region. Deloitte’s revenue in Asia grew by 16.3% in dollar terms, faster than anywhere else. This was despite long-running worries about dodgy audits of Chinese companies by Western firms. American and Chinese regulators have been rowing over whether America’s accounting watchdog may inspect Deloitte Shanghai’s work. The two sides recently announced that American regulators could visit and observe, but not perform their own inspections.

对于“四大”来说，亚洲是一座金山。德勤在亚洲的收入以美元计增幅达16.3%，增速领先所有其他各地区。尽管长期以来就有西方企业对中国公司的审计不那么可信的担忧。美国和中国的监管机构一直就美国会计监察人员是否能检查德勤上海分公司的业务而争论不休。双方最近宣称：美国监管机构可以进入德勤上海分公司，观察其业务流程，但是不能行使他们自己的检查措施。

Yet more important, at all four firms consulting has been growing much faster than the audit business in recent years. In fiscal 2012 Deloitte increased its revenues from consulting by 13.5% and from financial advisory by 15%—compared with just 6.1% for audit and 3.9% for tax and legal services (see chart). Barry Salzberg, Deloitte’s boss, says he expects consulting to continue to grow by double digits, whereas the audit market is mature. Deloitte is adding consulting staff at twice the rate as employees for audits (at the end of May the firm had 193,000 people on its payroll).

然而更重要的是，近几年来“四大”的咨询业务增速一直远远超过审计业务。2012财年，德勤来自咨询及财务顾问业务的收入分别增加了13.5%和15%；相比之下，审计业务仅增加6.1%而税收及法律业务仅增加3.9%（如表所示）。德勤总裁巴里•萨尔茨伯格（Barry Salzbery）表示，鉴于审计业务市场已经达到了饱和状态，他预料咨询业务将会继续以两位数的增幅增长。德勤扩招咨询业务员工的速率是审计业务员工的2倍之多。（至今年5月底其工资表上的员工数量已达19.3万人）

If the two businesses continue to grow at the 2012 rate, the firm would do more consulting than auditing by 2017. Some lawmakers already fret that consulting and tax advisory (when the Big Four are explicitly helping companies make money) can be in conflict with auditing (where the firms should take a wary, outside view of the books, in the service of investors not management). Lynn Turner, a former chief accountant at America’s Securities and Exchange Commission, calls the audit firms a “public utility”, but worries that they do not see themselves that way.

如果咨询和财务顾问业务继续以2012年的速率增长，那么到2017年德勤咨询业务的规模将会超过审计业务。一些立法者已经为咨询和税务顾问业务可能会与审计业务相互矛盾、抵触而感到苦恼。“四大”的咨询和税务顾问业务大张旗鼓地为公司牟利，而审计业务需要他们谨小慎微，以局外人的身份来审计报表，服务于投资者而非公司管理层。美国证券交易委员会（America’s Securities and Exchange Commission）前首席会计师莱恩•特纳（Lynn Turner）将审计公司称之为“公用事业公司”，但他担心它们对自己的定位并非如此。

In 2002 the Sarbanes-Oxley act limited what kind of non-audit services an American accounting firm can offer to an audit client. But contrary to what many people believe, it did not forbid all of them. In its last full proxy statement before being bought by JPMorgan, Bear Stearns reported paying Deloitte in 2006 not only $20.8m for audit, but $6.3m for other services. The perception that auditors and clients are hand-in-glove, fair or not, is a reason why shareholders of Bear Stearns sued Deloitte along with the defunct bank. (JPMorgan and Deloitte settled in June. Deloitte paid out $20m, denying any wrongdoing.)

《2012萨班斯•奥克利斯法案》（In 2002 the Sarbanes-Oxley act）对美国会计公司为审计客户所能提供的非审计服务的种类做出了限制。但是事实并非如许多人所相信的那样，该法案并没有禁止所有的非审计类业务。贝尔斯登（Bear Stearns）在被摩根大通（JPMorgan）收购之前发布了最后一份完整的股东委托书，表明2006年不但支付给德勤2,080万美元的审计费用，而且还支付了630万美元其他服务费用。由于贝尔斯登的股东认为审计公司和客户暗箱操作，不论这种说法公正与否，这都是他们起诉德勤和已经破产清算的贝尔斯登的一个原因。（当年6月摩根大通和德勤与上诉股东达成庭外和解，德勤支付了2000万美元，否认了任何违规操作。）

The European Commission in Brussels recently proposed taking a meat-axe to the problem. A draft directive provides for the creation of audit-only firms in the European Union. But the legal-affairs committee of the European Parliament does not like the idea. With the EU’s legislative machinery slow and complex, it is impossible to predict the final outcome.

布鲁塞尔欧盟委员会最近提议对这一问题采取严厉的监管措施。一份指导草案提议在欧盟内建立仅从事审计业务的会计事务所。但是欧洲议会法律事务委员会对并不赞成。鉴于欧盟缓慢而又复杂的立法机制，最终结果难以预料。

Asked what would happen if people perceived Deloitte as a consulting firm with an audit business rather than the other way round, Mr Salzberg replies: “we’re not going to take our eye off our professional responsibility with respect to either.” The future of the Big Four’s business model may depend on whether lawmakers in Europe and America are convinced that this is possible.

当被问及如果人们认为德勤是一家附带审计业务的咨询公司而非附有咨询业务的审计公司，它们将如何应对之时，总裁萨尔茨伯格回应道：“不论是在咨询业务还是在审计业务上，我们都不会牺牲自己的职业操守。”“四大”未来的商业模式可能取决于欧洲和美国的立法者是否相信他们能够做到。