About Jim Peterson
Jim Peterson is a US-trained and qualified lawyer, concentrating for over fifty years on complex multi-national matters involving corporate financial information.
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Jim, glad to see you are back. Cheers!
Welcome back!
Thanks Cesar. To say that you’re not alone would. be a massive under-statement – the very reason for this piece.…
I confess that I hadn’t noticed this side of the issue, despite being somewhat pessimistic regarding sustainability reports.
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The New Andersen’s IPO
No comments on The New Andersen’s IPOThe New Andersen’s IPO After a three-month break obliged by the closure of my blog-hosting service, this New Years re-start aligns by coincidence with the recent initial public offering and NYSE listing of the Andersen Group Inc. Priced at $ 16 per share on December 16, ANDG opened for trading the next morning by popping up to $21, and has since moved around the mid-20s. Although I am usually successful at resisting the siren call of FOMO – no crypto for me, thank you – I bought a few shares. A tale worth unpacking is that this newly-public company may be a…
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Welcome Back: A Fresh Look at the Same Issues
Hello again – after an unexpected pause and with a new look – as requested by exactly nobody. After many years of good performance, my hosting service blind-sided me with an abrupt notice of its closing at the end of September. While it’s taken longer than I expected to relocate and re-engineer, and this new site will need some tweaking, the process has inspired some introspection. Twenty-plus years of writing about the large accounting firms and their role, performance and issues in the eco-system of the world’s capital markets has built an archive that spans twenty-plus years, dozens of columns,…
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Lessons from the Classroom: How Trump Worked His Advantages – Which We Allowed
When and how can the looting and pillaging inflicted by Trump’s malign version of government be arrested? It’s not only that the damage already done is incalculable, under a barrage of attacks so sweeping as to make clear that the MAGA intent is that our national future will be more fearful, sick, poor, dirty and stupid. Or that vital institutions are under relentless and escalating attacks – the agencies responsible for our health and welfare, scientific research, and global security and stability; the financial foundations of the world’s interdependent economies; and the core values of universities and law firms and…
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KPMG’s Family Planning – Good Luck!
Last week I was pleased to guest-post on The Dig, Francine McKenna's Substack. For those who missed it there: On March 10, 2025, Stephen Foley reported in the Financial Times that “KPMG is aiming to slash the number of ‘economic units’ that make up the international network to as few as 32 by next year, from more than 100 two years ago…” A reader’s comment quickly followed: “Consolidating audit entities across jurisdictions? That worked brilliantly for Arthur Andersen – right up until it didn’t.” Because little enough is known, much less understood, about the organizational genius that made Andersen the…
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The CPA Pipeline – How It Looks From Here
A drunk scrabbling on his knees under a street light tells the inquiring policeman that he lost his keys in the dark alley. “So why are you looking here?” asks the cop. “Because the light’s better.” Here is why not to be concerned over the so-called “pipeline” problem with the future supply of new CPAs – what KPMG’s US head Paul Knopp recently called a “brewing crisis” that “calls for urgent reforms to halt the slide in the accounting ranks.” Because much of the current discussion is both exaggerated and misguided in its failure to reach the core issues,…
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Auditor Choice and Concentration, KPMG, Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, Regulators’ Activities, Securities and Exchange Commission, Value of the Auditor’s Report
Auditor Performance Metrics: The Deal Offered by the PCAOB
Even as the new year will likely bring the defenestration of Erica Williams, chair of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, that agency has tossed up to its over-seer, the Securities and Exchange Commission, proposed rules that would – in the unlikely event of SEC approval – require registered audit firms to bring forth volumes of details on their performance metrics. Views differ on both the wisdom of the rules themselves and the extent of the capital markets’ appetite for details on the operations of the world’s large public companies’ auditors. But pass the basic question whether any of…
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Accounting Firm Structures, Auditor Liability, CPA Pipeline, Evolution of the Assurance Function, International Sustainability Standards Board, Sustainability
Refuge from the Storm – Seeking Shelter in Troubling Times
“… but we must cultivate our garden” – Voltaire’s Candide, 1759 This space has been quieter than usual for a while. As the season approaches for year-end meditation and review, there are two reasons. First, with the cyclical state of the capital markets somewhere between benign and robust, the critics’ cries of “where were the auditors?” are muted, and the regulators are largely quiescent. Second, in a highly charged political environment that shows no sign of relief, “commentary overload” is real – for both providers and…
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Assurance for Sustainability Reports – Risk Management Wants a Word
It was my pleasure this week to be a guest on Kevin LaCroix's D&O Diary, with these observations on the under-appreciated scope and scale of the exposures that will threaten auditors and other providers of assurance, as corporate recording and reporting in the Sustainability eco-system continues to expand. My appreciation to Kevin, whose readership is an important constituency in this dialog. Advocates for expanded Sustainability reporting are having a global moment. As put by the panelists in a fulsome discussion re-printed in the June 2024 issue of the Accountability in a Sustainable World Quarterly (the “Panel”): “Of the…
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Jim, you always have interesting things to say. Good to see that you are back in action. Best regards Tom