Demise of EY's Project Everest Stems From Self-Inflicted Wound

No one should be surprised at the canceled split of EY’s audit and consulting practices following a confrontation between the firm’s global and US leaders. But a post-mortem period of recriminations, blame-mongering, and blood-letting is inevitable.

That's the lede of my guest post today on the home page of Bloomberg Tax, with thanks for the opportunity:

Carmine Di Sibio’s mountain has fallen to a pile of rubble.

The aspiration of EY’s global leader to separate the Big Four firm’s audit and consulting practices under the grandiose title of Project Everest was announced on April 11 to have failed. A post-mortem period of recriminations, blame-mongering, and blood-letting is inevitable.

No one should be surprised. Two weeks of silence on the resistance of EY’s crucial US firm after the late-March confrontation between Di Sibio and US leader Julie Boland spoke to the deal’s imperiled state. Project Everest’s trajectory went from a strategic imperative to re-engineer Big Audit to an abrupt collapse labeled “chaos” by EY’s own partners that will feature as a case study in business school curricula.

Preliminary conclusions are already available. The memorandum of capitulation by EY’s global executive team, which dangled the notion of a future revival, listed the requirements: “to adapt our governance, operating model, cost structures, capital investments, and go-to-market approach.” It didn’t acknowledge that each of these was identifiably inadequate when Everest was announced.

Looking back on the face-off between Di Sibio and Boland, the Americans’ stated concern was the allocation of EY’s tax practitioners—between a new consulting practice with its planned public listing and cascades of financial benefits, and the legacy audit firm staying behind in a traditional partnership structure.

There’s much more. The echoes of surrender were still reverberating on April 12, when Boland announced a US strategy and cost-saving program. It’s a complex aspiration on its own and clearly a card she held closely in the weeks of wrangling with Di Sibio.

Going forward, Di Sibio’s credibility must be fatally wounded despite global messages; Boland will be non grata among large and disappointed portions of EY’s various partnerships. But she has the US firm tagging $500 million in savings—a handy bucket she can claim by dropping the foregone costs of canceled recruits and staff defections.

Inside EY, there’s some sympathy. It’s to be hoped that the consultants anticipating multimillion-dollar IPO windfalls were restrained in their eager down payments on vacation homes, bigger boats, and fancier cars. Meanwhile, poaching will advance. Individual partners will test the waters to affirm the handsome valuations they’d been led to believe they represented. Some, at least, will be met with open arms.

And where now, for the contours of global Big Audit? Although EY posited that its practice separation would be a “road map for reshaping the profession,” and urged that it would “inevitably be copied” by its brethren, Di Sibio might regret the move.

Early reactions from other large firms ranged from quiet skepticism to downright disdain in an in-house video from Deloitte’s global leader, Joe Ucuzoglu. To say they’re having a moment likely understates the muted snickering behind closed doors. In Australia, KPMG’s leader Andrew Yates was quoted that “the deal’s collapse showed that clients still wanted a one-stop shop.” To the same effect, Deloitte’s Adam Powick said “we have been unwavering in our commitment to our multi-disciplinary and private partnership model.”

Advocates for the large firms’ retention of the ancillary expertise necessary to carry out global-scale audits—tax and appraisal, and evaluation and crypto and cybersecurity--may not have won an outright battle. But those arguing that an “audit only” firm can hire or outsource those necessary resources are now disarmed.

Most important, the anticipated stream of defections hopefully will be moderate enough to leave behind a stable firm. The Big Four tetrapoly that survived Arthur Andersen’s 2002 collapse is down to a critical minimum. A three-firm model might be unsustainable under existing scope of practice limitations and uneven global distribution of resources and expertise.

The emergence from this dark period of a vital EY affects the survival of the Big Audit model itself, at least in its current form. However, EY’s survival as an essential player depends on its leaders’ ability to face and resolve a set of challenges:

• Satisfy its uneasy clients that engagement quality has not suffered;
• Recast internal messages to return to work after the massive distraction of nearly a year of speculation and uncertainty;
• Ramp down any misrule among the resident troops; and
• Reach out to recruits and applicants with whatever assurance can be mustered that adults are in charge and have their interests at heart.

As Di Sibio feels his once-shining star fade to a cinder, he may find a bit of solace in the emollient words of a niche London consultant: “The fact that this deal, as constructed, now seems unlikely to go ahead doesn’t mean that the thinking that underpinned it was wrong.” Translated from the jargon of someone angling to be hired in the future, this means, “Sorry, you blew it—perhaps another time, although not likely, and not on your watch.”

With EY facing a distinctly clouded future, the book-makers running the betting pool on the over/under date of Di Sibio’s retirement are no longer accepting wagers.

 

Reproduced with permission. Published April 13, 2023. Copyright 2023 Bloomberg Industry Group 800-372-1033. For further use please visit https://www.bloombergindustry.com/copyright-and-usage-guidelines-copyright/  

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