Grant Thornton fined for inadequate audit of unnamed firm
Beleaguered accounting giant Grant Thornton has been fined £422,500 and had one of its partners sanctioned for the bungled audit of an unnamed listed company.
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Presumably GT will be content at simply charging clients exhorbitant fees on the basis that the GT signature at the bottom of the accountants report provides the clients with credibility in the eyes of banks, investors, financiers etc. The fact that GT can't audit companies properly simply demonstrates that they aren;t very good and are no better than other perfectly competent accountants who offer value for money to clients. I suspect nothing will change as those at the banks etc will simply wish to cover their arses by getting a big name at the bottom of the report.
I would be surprised if GT were much worse/better than any other auditor. Statistically you will always get one firm with more problems than average (based on pure bad luck) or who will have fewest problems (based on pure good luck), a bit like stock pickers.
So the FRC discovered that more than one in four of of GT's audits in the past 5 years required ''SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT''.
In my book that's a ####### disgrace. Are HMRC taking note I wonder ?
It is not clear from the article whether GT have been fined £422,500 or £650,000 as both figures have been quoted. Which is it?
By not naming the listed company, then all it achieves is to cast doubt on all listed companies audited by GT. Totally unhelpful to investors.