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☆ Carillion Liquidators Say KPMG Missed Red Flags in Audits of Defunct Construction Firm
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( Jennifer Williams-Alvarez | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +4 min

Big Four firm KPMG LLP missed multiple red flags when it audited the financial statements of Carillion PLC, the liquidators of the defunct construction and outsourcing firm said. KPMG received £29 million from Carillion without qualifying its audit opinions over the course of 19 years, according to the liquidators. The construction company’s liquidators also reject KPMG’s argument that the value of the construction contracts was concealed. The Carillion liquidators will rely at trial on findings from the FRC’s investigation, the filings show. If there is no settlement between the liquidators and the audit firm, the case against KPMG could go to trial in or around 2024.

☆ Toxic company cultures are driving workers to quit their jobs. Here's how to spot the signs before accepting a job.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Toxic company cultures are the main reason that workers quit their jobs, according to research from MIT. Organizational psychologist Adam Grant says being aware of the signs of bad work culture can help. The research found that toxic work culture was the biggest cause of attrition, even more so than bad pay or job insecurity. How can candidates identify a bad work culture without insulting their potential employers? Grant recommends familiarizing yourself with the key signs of bad workplace culture and carefully analyzing the company stories and values.

☆ Bank regulators tell Citigroup to take urgent action to fix resolution plan
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Hannah Lang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The regulators gave Citi a January 2023 deadline to submit its plan to address the shortcomings, while giving the all clear to seven other large banks that submitted resolution plans. The problems related to earlier concerns the Fed had identified with Citi’s data quality and data management in an October 2020 enforcement action against the bank. Eric Compton, a banking analyst at Morningstar, said regulators often highlight data management issues at banks because they can be interrelated, potentially having wide-ranging impact. “Citi is not the first bank to have its resolution plan dinged," he said. Those problems related to the banks' abilities to produce data in stressed conditions to implement their resolution plans.

Workers at Google and other big tech companies in recent years have clashed and protested over politics and racial and gender equity. "We've always been proud to host external speakers at Google, as they provide great opportunities for learning and connection for our employees," Google spokesman Ryan Lamont told Reuters. Rivals such as Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) also have policies for inviting speakers. At Google, speakers have included then-U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama, celebrity chef Ayesha Curry and former basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. At least one of the critics suggested inviting for balance Rajiv Malhotra, according to an internal message.

☆ Sequoia-backed grocery startup Getir is close to buying its troubled rival Gorillas in a heavily discounted deal said to be worth less than $1 billion
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Callum Burroughs | Shona Ghosh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Grocery-delivery startup Gorillas is set to be acquired by its major rival Getir, sources say. Gorillas' valuation is expected to collapse from $3 billion to less than $1 billion, with layoffs anticipated. Beleaguered grocery delivery startup Gorillas is set to be acquired by Turkish rival Getir in a cash-and-equity deal that is expected to close in the coming weeks and at a substantially lower valuation, Insider understands. Gorillas' investors and shareholders will be paid out in cash while others will be offered preferred stock in Getir, the people said. Most of Gorillas' senior management is expected to stay on with with Getir shares as part of their package.

☆ Here are Friday's biggest analyst calls: Apple, Amazon, Coinbase, Carvana, Intel, Imax & more
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Michael Bloom | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

UBS upgrades Werner to buy from neutral UBS said it sees upside for several trucking company names. "We are upgrading three truckload names to Buy from Neutral including HTLD, WERN , and SNDR and reiterating our Buy on KNX. Bank of America reiterates Amazon as buy Bank of America said reports of a cost cutting review at Amazon are a "positive." JPMorgan reiterates Silvergate as overweight JPMorgan said the crypto company's exposure to FTX is overblown. JPMorgan reiterates Netflix as overweight JPMorgan said it has "increased conviction" in shares of the streaming giant.

☆ U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office’s Director to Depart Next Year
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( David Smagalla | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +2 min

Lisa Osofsky, director of the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office, will leave her job in August 2023 after completing her five-year tenure with the white-collar crime prosecuting agency, according to a person with knowledge of the SFO’s plans. The U.K. attorney general’s office will start its search for her successor immediately, the person said in an email, adding that Ms. Osofsky will remain in her job for a short period after her tenure ends if needed. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | Risk and Compliance Journal Our Morning Risk Report features insights and news on governance, risk and compliance. PREVIEW The leadership of the SFO by Ms. Osofsky, a former U.S. prosecutor, has been marked by scrutiny over its handling of a criminal bribery probe into oil-services consulting firm Unaoil Group. More recently, her team scored a victory in a case against Glencore PLC.

☆ Shanghai bourse kicks off week-long conference to woo global investors
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SHANGHAI, Nov 8 (Reuters) - The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) kicks off on Wednesday a week-long global conference to promote China's capital markets, according to an official agenda, the latest in a flurry of activities by regulators to woo international investors. Participants at the annual SSE Global Investor Conference, to be held Nov. 9-16, and closed to the media, include Chinese regulators, executives from global banks and asset managers such as abrdn, Deutsche Bank and PIMCO. At the Global Financial Leaders' Investment Summit in Hong Kong last week, the country's senior financial regulators reaffirmed China's commitment to economic growth as a priority. Senior Chinese officials also sent similar messages at the China International Import Expo over the weekend. In the "fireside chat" section, senior officials from China's securities and foreign exchange regulators will talk about promoting the opening-up of China's capital market, and facilitating cross-border investment.

☆ Internal forums, major deals, and employee exits: Inside BlackRock's long road to embracing crypto
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Rebecca Ungarino | Morgan Chittum | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

A group of employees at the firm organized and started holding a forum to discuss crypto, five people familiar with the group told Insider. Eager, usually more junior, staff members huddled around to hear industry experts talk about crypto and blockchain. A junior employee touched off BlackRock's crypto effortsThe blockchain working group and the informal crypto-asset forum will end up being key footnotes in the firm's history. Leaving BlackRock for cryptoLader left BlackRock in June 2021 for Uniswap, the world's largest decentralized-exchange protocol, where she is now the chief operating officer. She was "very, very central" to the firm's crypto efforts," a former employee said.

☆ Trio to lead energy-drinks giant Red Bull after co-founder's death
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

VIENNA, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Energy-drinks giant Red Bull will be headed by a board consisting of three current members of senior management following the death of co-founder Dietrich Mateschitz, his son Mark said in a statement issued by the company on Friday. He said the board would consist of Franz Watzlawick (CEO Beverage Business), Alexander Kirchmayr (CFO), and Oliver Mintzlaff (CEO Corporate Projects and Investments). He added that he had stepped down from his job at the company to focus on managing the 49% stake in Red Bull he inherited from his father. "I do not believe one should be both an employee and a shareholder of the same company. "Moreover, as managing directors of Distribution & Marketing GmbH, which I now own, and which holds 49% of the company shares of Red Bull GmbH, Walter and Volker will be supporting me personally," he added.

☆ Dentsply Sirona Finds Improper Accounting for Incentives, Plans to Restate Earnings
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Mark Maurer | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +7 min

The company said it overstated net sales and net income for the nine-month period ended Sept. 30, 2021 by $35 million and $27 million, respectively. Dentsply also said it overstated its net sales and net income for the 2021 fiscal year by $20 million and $10 million, respectively. It also booked a combined $108 million in related net sales during those quarters. As a result, Dentsply overstated net sales in the third quarter of 2021 by roughly $4 million, which should have been recorded the following quarter. A re-evaluation of controls and procedures identified one or more material weaknesses in the company’s internal controls over financial reporting.

☆ Paying off hackers is common, says top Australian govt cybersecurity firm
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Byron Kaye | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

SYDNEY, Oct 25 (Reuters) - Corporate insurers routinely pay hackers a ransom for the return of stolen customer data, a top Australian government cybersecurity provider said on Tuesday, as the country's biggest health insurer revealed the growing scale of a recent breach. "In what other sphere of life do you see reputable corporates pay millions of dollars to criminals and somehow it's all okay?" On Tuesday, Medibank said the criminal had shown data of another 1,000 customers and added that the number was likely to grow. 2 telco, Singapore Telecommunciations Ltd-owned (STEL.SI) Optus, said last month about 10 million customer accounts, equivalent to 40% of the Australian population, had data taken by a hacker demanding payment. The federal government has meanwhile said it would introduce fines of up to A$50 million for companies on the receiving end of data breaches.

☆ Former Amazon managers who became successful founders say metrics and frugality aren't great for startups but customer obsession is
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | Diamond Naga Siu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Five founders shared the aspects of Amazon's company culture they brought with them, or left behind. As Insider has previously reported, some Amazon employees have described the culture as hypercompetitive and overly frugal, which can lead to burnout. Yes to customer obsessionAll five founders praised Amazon's top leadership principle, established by its founder, Jeff Bezos: customer obsession. Those are metrics Amazon also follows closely. Some Amazon employees have dubbed this phenom "frupidity," a combination of the words "stupidity" and "frugality."

☆ Think you've got it bad? Odds are your manager is even more burned out than you are, according to a new survey.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-22 | by ( Hannah Towey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Your manager might be even more burned out than you are, according to new survey from Slack. 43% of the middle managers surveyed reported burnout, more than any other worker group. Among the middle managers surveyed, 43% said they are experiencing burnout as a result of chronic workplace stress. Staff without any workers underneath them reported the second-highest percentage at 40%, followed by senior management at 37%, and executives at 32%. And burnout isn't just bad for workers, it's bad for the bottom line too — causing 32% worse productivity and 60% worse ability to focus, per the survey.

☆ Here's what the Wells Fargo cross-selling scandal means for the bank's growth
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Carlos Waters | In Carloswaters | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Wells Fargo is one of the oldest and most powerful banks in the United States. Regulators for banking, consumer protection, trading, and workplace safety continue to keep a close watch on Wells Fargo. In addition to fines, Wells Fargo has faced a cap on its assets, issued by the Federal Reserve in 2018. The issues at Wells Fargo are still unfolding. Watch the video to see how the Wells Fargo scandal positions the bank in 2022.

☆ Goldman’s brainwaves are best left for its clients
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( John Foley | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

A strategic swerve is an acknowledgement that brainwaves are best pitched to clients than executed by the Wall Street firm itself. Jamie Dimon’s bank drops around $12 billion a year on technology, an entire quarter of Goldman’s revenue. It’s a U-turn, but that’s okay since Goldman is still a leader on the bread-and-butter Wall Street stuff. The Wall Street firm made an 11% return on equity. Revenue from fixed-income trading increased 41% year-on-year, and equities trading revenue slipped 14%.

☆ ValueAct's Morfit sees Insight Enterprises stock surging as cloud computing grows
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Svea Herbst-Bayliss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Mason Morfit, the firm's chief executive and chief investment officer, said the company's stock price, currently trading at $87.63, could climb to as high as $500 a share in the next five years. Morfit said he was speaking out about Insight because it is broadly overlooked by the market. As Insight helps transform its partner companies, it is also transforming itself having hired a new chief executive earlier this year and having changed the bulk of senior management. For ValueAct, betting on the megatrend of digital transformation started when Morfit had a board seat at Microsoft (MSFT.O) years ago. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Lisa ShumakerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ 'It's a disastrous situation': Women leaders are leaving companies at the highest rate ever
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Morgan Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Women leaders are leaving their companies at the highest rate ever, and the gap between women and men in senior roles quitting their jobs is the largest it's ever been, according to new data from LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company, which started tracking these numbers in 2015. Women are still struggling to climb the corporate ladderMore than half (58%) of women under 30 say career advancement has become more important to them over the past two years, compared to 31% of women leaders. What's more, women leaders are twice as likely as men leaders to be mistaken for someone more junior — and 37% of women leaders have had a co-worker receive credit for their idea, compared to 27% of men leaders. "It's a disastrous situation … you're not promoting enough women into the leadership ranks, and now you have more women leaving leadership roles," Thomas says. "In a world where women remain dramatically underrepresented in senior leadership, those two problems together create a pretty awful one-two punch for companies trying to hold on to women leaders."

☆ Senior KFC Executives Opt for Retirement as Interest Rates Hit Pension Payouts
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-15 | by ( Heather Haddon | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

KFC is the second biggest chicken chain by U.S. sales behind Chick-fil-A. Rising interest rates are adding to companies’ borrowing costs and triggering higher credit-card bills for consumers. At KFC, they are driving a turnover in senior management. The Louisville, Ky.-based brand’s U.S. chief operating officer, chief financial officer and national field operations director have all notified Yum Brands KFC’s parent, that they will leave the chicken chain at the end of next month, according to company messages viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

☆ Read the pitch deck that Impossible Kicks, a sneaker-resale brand, used to close a $3 million Series A round
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Alexandra York | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The company booked $15 million in revenue last year and has raised $7 million total in funding. Here's the pitch deck that helped its cofounder John Mocadlo raise a $3 million Series A round. Impossible Kicks booked $15 million in revenue in 2021, documents provided to Insider showed. It closed a $3 million Series A round in September, bringing its total funding to $7 million. Mocadlo shared the 29-slide Impossible Kicks pitch deck used for the Series A funding round.

☆ Buy this defensive consumer stock as recession fears grow, Atlantic Equities says
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Samantha Subin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

As recessionary fears mount and economic growth concerns persist, Atlantic Equities says investors should put their money in resilient consumer names such as Kimberly-Clark . Analyst Edward Lewis upgraded shares of the Huggies and Kleenex maker to overweight, citing an attractive entry point for the stock following the recent market pullback. "At the same time, cost pressures are likely to ease supporting margin expansion and EPS recovery. Lewis also thinks cost pressures from Kimberly-Clark's exposure to pulp, resin and energy, which have hit gross margins, should ease into 2023. Lewis maintained the firm's $135 price target on Kimberly-Clark, suggesting a 21% upside for shares from Tuesday's close despite falling 22% this year.

"It is definitely a business school case study. Musk's attempt to take over Twitter is "a gift to professors and students", said Joshua White, a professor at Vanderbilt University, calling the situation "unprecedented". While the messages reflect his unusual approach to running a business, taking control of Twitter will mean managing it, at least initially. "What is to come is unclear," said Donna Hitscherich, a Columbia Business School professor. Success or failure, it will be an instant business school classroom staple, experts say.

☆ 'Quiet quitting' my toxic job gave me time back to start my own business. This is how I did it.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-24 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Here's why she did it and how she got away with "quiet quitting," as told to Jyoti Mann. I was working hours and hours of overtime but only being paid a very modest salary. I was pretty open and direct about "quiet quitting." "Quiet quitting" for three months gave me the time back to start my own business. "Quiet quitting" is really beneficial for workers that feel undervalued.

☆ BlackRock bought a money manager to expand in private credit. Insiders say the deal has now led to an exodus of frustrated employees.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Danielle Walker | Rebecca Ungarino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

After BlackRock acquired private credit firm Tennenbaum Capital Partners, more than a dozen employees left the small investment team. Former BlackRock employees say underwhelming pay and unfulfilled promises that the team could raise its own special situations fund led to widespread frustration and departures. The departures come as BlackRock aims to compete more aggressively in private credit, a key part of its high-priority alternatives push. Still, in recent years management has made it clear that its private investment capabilities need to be an important engine of growth. "It's not to say that the private credit market is easy to manage talent.

☆ Burger King's new 'Royal Reset' would reward 800 top restaurants but could punish thousands of others. Analysts worry it could kick off a 'Darwinian' battle for survival.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-19 | by ( Nancy Luna | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Tim Powell, the managing principal at the consultancy Foodservice IP, said Burger King units were long overdue for modernization. But he questioned Burger King's "survival of the fittest" tactic. Jose Cil, the CEO of Burger King's Restaurant Brands International, said the turnaround plan was directed at lifting sales for all restaurants. "All of that will lead to an output which is increased traffic, increased sales, increased restaurant-level profitability, and growth for the brand, from a systemwide sales standpoint. US sales at Burger King increased nearly 4% in 2021.

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