PwC Financial News

Four Financial Review reporters are finalists in the Walkley awards for excellence in business journalism, in what the judges said was “a very strong year for entries”.

Manipal Hospitals said on Wednesday it has acquired an 84% stake in AMRI Hospitals in its bid to expand its presence in eastern India. Kolkata-based AMRI Hospitals is owned by FMCG-to-realty conglomerate Emami Group and comprises of over 1,200 beds, over 800 doctors and 5,000-plus healthcare professionals. «In an endeavour to focus on our core businesses, we have divested our majority stake in AMRI Hospitals,» Aditya Agarwal and Manish Goenka, directors, Emami Group, said in a statement. Emami will continue to hold a 15% stake in AMRI with the government of West Bengal holding a 1% stake in the firm. Hospitals in India have been buying each other at near record rates, with M&As totalling $4 billion in 2022 and $2.2 billion in the first five months of this year, Reuters reported in June. The private healthcare sector in India has seen a post-pandemic boom with global consultancy firm PwC projecting a 12-14% annual growth for India's private healthcare market, currently worth around $48 billion.

Partners in big-four accounting firms could be on the hook for nine-figure payouts from new tax-promoter penalties, although draft legislation released on Wednesday shows the maximum sanctions will be less than the $780 million figure previously flagged by the government.

fundraising challenges are reaching out to tax experts to discuss possible angel tax scrutiny, alarmed by recent income-tax department actions following changes in angel tax provisions. A founder who is in the middle of raising a down round said the threat of getting I-T notices has gone up especially after the government brought overseas funds under ‘angel tax’, or Section 56(2)(viib) of the Income-Tax Act, 1961, from 2023-24.

The Albanese government has released draft legislation to impose penalties of up to $780 million for tax promoter breaches as part of its response to the PwC tax leaks scandal.

The main disciplinary body for the major accounting firms says it “does not shy away investigating members in the big four firms” after revealing it sanctioned 17 members from big four accounting firms during the past seven years.

Deloitte is set to cut more than 800 jobs in the UK in response to a slowdown in demand and an easing in the pace of workers choosing to leave, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Two employment law experts believe that it might be difficult for PwC Australia to enforce its “rule of three” against departing partners because courts could view these types of clause as an unreasonable restraint of trade.

High-profile accountant Gerry Incollingo has lost his appeal against his suspension as a tax agent over his role in backdating documents for colourful Sydney property developer Charbel Demian in a $34 million tax case.

PwC Australia’s leadership is trying to stem a rising tide of partners leaving by enforcing a rule that obliges senior staff involved in a “group departure” to a rival firm to pay back the fees they generated in the previous year.

PwC Australia aims to end a “jobs for the boys” culture among its leaders and has headhunters searching for its first-ever independent board members before the release of a report into the governance-related failures that led to the firm’s tax leaks scandal.

Digital payment services provider Paytm on Wednesday said its shareholders have approved the appointment of a new statutory auditor, S.R. Batliboi & Associates LLP, for five years. S.R. Batliboi & Associates LLP has been approved as the new statutory auditor of Paytm for five years in the 23rd annual general meeting held on September 12, Paytm said in an exchange filing.

Edith Cowan University has moved to terminate a contract with PwC to manage its $853 million campus project in Perth amid concerns the work was scheduled to be moved to the big-four firm’s public sector consulting spin-off, Scyne.

Deloitte plans to layoff more than 800 positions in the UK, equivalent to about 3% of its workforce of 27,000 in the country, in response to a slowdown in demand and an easing in the pace of workers choosing to leave, Bloomberg reported citing source. Accountants at the Big Four firms -- which also include Ernst & Young LLP, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and KPMG LLP -- are clinging to their jobs amid economic uncertainty and a sharp drop in open roles, the report said “Today we announced some targeted restructuring across our businesses, which may put some roles at risk of redundancy," Bloomberg quoted Deloitte CEO Richard Houston.

(Reuters) — The highest inflation for decades and the fallout from war in Ukraine have forced companies across Europe into layoffs or hiring freezes.

Extra scrutiny on the consulting industry after the PwC tax leaks scandal has obliged firms to release unprecedented detail about partner pay, highlighting a disparity between the average pay of the five largest firms by revenue.

When asked by a federal government inquiry if Accenture kept track of its relationships with public sector clients, Peter Burns said not only did the firm do so, but that it was a “common” business practice.

According to  G lobeNewswire, BIGG Digital Assets Inc. (BIGG) has formalized its intent to acquire all outstanding shares of TerraZero Technologies Inc. not already under its umbrella. The transaction, with an estimated valuation of approximately $20 million, is set to be facilitated through an issuance of around 62 million common shares of BIGG.

IFM Investors’ private equity unit has invested $80 million into software business Tally Group, which specialises in administering and billing for customers who use the grid for drawing and sending power.

IDBI Bank and the qualification criteria set out have caused a stir among the big four accounting firms that could lose out on the job despite their involvement in some of the biggest banking mergers in recent years. A request for proposal (RFP) document circulated by the government's department of investment and public asset management (DIPAM) on September 1 states that only valuers registered with the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) are eligible for applying to value IDBI Bank's assets. Further, the registered entities need to have a turnover of above ₹5 crore for three consecutive financial years and also need to have carried out valuations of financial assets above ₹5,000 crore through the registered entities. The big four accounting firms, Deloitte, EY, PwC and KPMG could get eliminated from the selection process because they could fall short of the eligibility criteria for turnover or because they carried out large valuations exercises from different entities and not their IBBI-registered valuer entities, according to sources. For instance, Deloitte was the valuer on the $64-billion merger of HDFC and HDFC Bank but its IBBI-registered entity doesn't meet the turnover threshold because it was recently incorporated.

A former PwC tax partner named by the firm as one of four senior personnel who appeared in emails associated with its tax leaks scandal has launched his own practice to provide advice to a group of clients who have stuck with him over the past three months.