EY Israel rejects break-up plan pushed by global bosses
EY partners in Israel will not split their audit and consulting businesses, becoming the largest territory outside China to shun the break-up plan approved by the accounting group’s global leadership last month.
The Big Four firm is racing to hash out more details of the complex proposal ahead of country-by-country partner votes which it anticipated to begin before the end of the year.
A break-up of EY’s 365,000-person business would dramatically reshape the accounting and consulting landscape and is being watched across the industry.
Options include hiring or acquiring local consultants. Getting Chinese regulatory approval to include EY China in the global split has not been ruled out entirely but that process is expected to take longer than elsewhere if it happens.
The new global advisory company “would have the right to operate . . . and to build up a practice” in any country that rejected the deal, EY’s global chair and chief executive Carmine Di Sibio told the FT in July.
The advisory arm could also poach consultants from the holdout partnerships immediately. “[It] certainly can go and recruit people . . . if it wanted to,” said Di Sibio.
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Stephen Foley
