The Institute has launched the “CPAs for CPAs” Mentorship Programme to offer aspiring accountants the opportunity to learn from experienced members so they can develop their career through consultation and experience sharing.

The pilot scheme cycle, during which an approved mentor can take one or two men-tees, begins on 1 April 2015 and extends for 12 months.

The objective of the programme is to create mentor-mentee relationships built on mutual respect and trust. The scope of mentoring includes, among other things, essential skills of a successful CPA on professional and ethical behaviour, problem-solving, decision-making and self-management.

This is an invaluable opportuni-ty for aspiring members to enrich their individual learning and growth through a personalized development opportunity.

The programme also aims to help mentees broaden their mindsets in pursuing their career

direction and advancement. As a pilot programme, up to 100 mentee

applications will be accepted on a first-come-first-served basis, subject to a successful matching process. Applicants should be members with post-qualification experience of three years or less.

A member in good standing with post-qual-ification experience of seven years and above,

who has the desire to give back and invest in the future of the

profession, is welcome to be a mentor.

Active participation and commitment are essential

to the success of a rewarding mentorship. A mentee should

have clear objectives of what he or she expects to achieve by

participating in this programme.According to the guide, the

mentee should ensure that ob-jectives are discussed and agreed

with the mentor at the outset of the mentorship. Anything discussed

during the mentor-mentee relationship should be confidential.

Visit www.hkicpa.org.hk/mentorship for more details. Join as mentees or mentors by 31 December.

NEWSTHE INSTITUTE

4 November 2014

New mentorship programme offerspersonalized career developmentSkills enhancement, broadened minds among objectives

Disciplinary findingChoi Man-on, CPA (practising) and BDO Limited

Complaint: Failure or neglect to observe, maintain or otherwise apply Hong Kong Standard on Investment Circular Reporting Engagements 300 Accountants’ Reports on Pro Forma Financial Information in Investment Circulars in expressing an unqualified opinion in their report on the unaudited pro forma financial information of a group of companies (unaudited PFI) as a result of having failed to identify that the company had not applied its deferred taxation accounting policy consistently in the pro forma adjust-ments in the unaudited PFI.

Choi is a practising director of BDO, which issued an unqualified opinion on the unaudited PFI contained in a circu-lar issued by a listed company in Hong Kong for the purpose of a substantial acquisition.

The Institute received information from the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong about the respondents’ failure to recog-nize a deferred tax liability arising from an acquisition of a group of companies in the unaudited PFI. After considering the information available, the Institute lodged a complaint against the respon-dents under section 34(1)(a)(vi) of the Professional Accountants Ordinance.

Decision and reasons: The respon-dents were reprimanded and ordered to pay a penalty of HK$30,000 to the Institute. In addition, the respondents were ordered to pay the costs of the disciplinary proceedings of HK$25,080. When making its decision, the Disci-plinary Committee took into consider-ation the particulars in support of the complaint, the nature of the non-com-pliance and the conduct of the respon-dents throughout the proceedings.

Details of the disciplinary findings are available on www.hkicpa.org.hk.

Professional judgment guide issued

About 500 accounting professionals from great-er China, including the Institute’s 121-person delegation led by President Clement Chan, at-tended the Cross-straits, Hong Kong and Macau Accounting Profession Conference in October.

A guide on professional judgment for CPAs was issued, covering the concept of professional judgment; the relationship between profession-al judgment, competence and standards; and the major scope and decision-making process concerning professional judgment.

New rules allow members into free trade zone partnerships

A set of trial rules has been formulated by the Shanghai Municipal Finance Bureau to allow Hong Kong- and Macau-qualified CPAs who are also practising members of the Chinese Institute of CPAs to serve as partners of Mainland CPA practices within the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free-Trade Zone.

Obituary

The Institute notes with regret the passing of Lau Sui-cheung.

Tesco, the United Kingdom’s largest grocery chain, is considering spinning off its Asia-Pacific operations to shore up its fi-nances in the wake of a massive accounting scandal, British media reported.

The Daily Telegraph reported that the businesses could fetch up to £10 billion.

Tesco’s businesses in South Korea and Thailand are its largest international oper-ations, while it also has a strong presence in Malaysia, the paper noted.

The news comes as accounting firm Deloitte and law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer are investigating a £250 million profit overstatement at Tesco. The retailer booked income from deals with suppliers

early, while deferring costs, according to media reports.

Tesco has so far suspended eight exec-utives in connection with the scandal, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

NEWSACCOUNTING

6 November 2014

About 9,000 current and former female employees of KPMG in the United States received notices last month advising them of a class-action lawsuit against the firm involving the U.S. Equal Pay Act of 1963.

A U.S. District Court granted a law firm that initiated the

lawsuit in 2011 – which claims that female employees were un-lawfully paid less than their male counterparts – the right to mail the notices to women who have worked at the firm since 2008.

“Plaintiffs’ preliminary expert analysis shows that nationwide pay disparities at KPMG attrib-

utable to gender are statistically significant,” U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield noted in her ruling in favour of the law firm, Sanford Heisler.

After receiving the one-page notice, the women will have the opportunity to join the suit that seeks to recover the compensation that the plaintiffs contend they should have been paid.

KPMG disputes the allega-tions. “We will not comment on pending litigation other than to note that plaintiffs’ allegations are without merit, and KPMG will vigorously defend itself,” KPMG spokesman Man-uel Goncalves told

Accounting Today.Donna Kassman, a former se-

nior manager in KPMG’s New York office, filed suit against the firm in 2011, claiming she was repeatedly denied promotion after returning from maternity leave. Four other women later joined the US$400 million class-action lawsuit.

Women comprise about half of KPMG’s employees in the U.S., according to the plaintiffs, but only 18 percent of partners.

Embattled Tesco might spin off Asia unit, say U.K. specialists

Lawsuit claims Big Four firm systematically underpaid women

Findex announces Crowe Horwath acquisition

KPMG’s female employees in U.S. given notice of discrimination suit

Findex, a Sydney-based wealth management, estate planning and risk advisory company, will acquire the Australian operations of Crowe Horwath Australasia in a deal that values the accounting firm at about A$137 million.

“After careful consideration, the board has unanimously concluded that the proposal from Findex is a compelling proposition, offering Crowe Horwath shareholders a significant premium to the market price and fair value,” Crowe Horwath Chairman Richard Grellman told the Australian Financial Review.

Findex’s Chief Executive Officer, Spiro Paule, said in an announcement that the deal is part of the group’s long-term strategy of growth through acquisition and that they “plan to maintain the Crowe Horwath brand.”

KPMG tower in Tempe, Arizona

AFP

China’s State Council last month published rules to strengthen the supervision and management of about 12 trillion yuan in debts incurred by local governments.

The rules require the establishment of an integrated management mechanism for local government authorities to cover borrowing, use of funds and repayment as well as the financial reporting of the debt, Xinhua reported.

Amendments to the country’s

Budget Law earlier this year banned local governments from issuing bonds.

Municipalities used loopholes in the law to borrow from banks using investment vehicles, but the new State Council rules close those loopholes.

After an audit, Finance Minister Lou Jiwei last month estimated total local government debts at about 12 trillion yuan as of 30 June, up from 10.88 trillion yuan a year earlier.

Only 12 forensic audits of Indian bank loans have been completed in the past year, despite the country’s central bank mandating audits for loans of more than 10 billion rupees (HK$1.27 billion), media reported last month.

The obstacle is that auditors lack the power to inspect the books of companies that have taken out the loans. “The Reserve Bank of India needs to write a clause mandating the stringent and comprehensive right to audit and inspection of bank loan contracts,” Jagvinder Singh Brar, Forensic Services Partner with KPMG India in Gurgaon, told the Indian Express.

While the RBI was able to force banks to comply with the forensic audits, it had no power to make companies to turn over their re-cords. GS Sandhu, Secretary of the Department of Financial Services, told the Express that the govern-ment was working on a solution.

The Express noted that Big Four firms ramped up their recruitment of forensic accountants after the RBI rules were issued in October 2013, but subsequently found there was little work to offer them until legislation is changed.

November 2014 7

Military officers face more stringent audits

State Council rules close lending loopholes

Firms should address moral aspect of tax, says PwC boss

The People’s Liberation Army last month announced more stringent financial auditing regulations for officers amid a continuing anti-corruption drive in China.

PLA officers with power over large expenditures, such as construction projects, housing management, procurement and scientific research will be closely audited, the South China Morning Post reported,

citing the military’s website.Officers will not be promoted without first go-

ing through the new and rigorous auditing process, the paper reported.

Li Qing, head of the PLA’s audit office, was quoted as saying that the revised regulations would help improve investigation and punishment of corruption in the military.

Taxation advice has a moral dimension and accounting firms should play a role in helping companies to think about “what’s accept-able and appropriate,” according to Dennis Nally, Chairman of PricewaterhouseCoo-pers International.

“A lot of tax laws on the books of individual countries were written years ago,” Nally told

the Financial Times. “These may have been fit for purpose at one time but are coming under review

as countries struggle with their own revenue base.”

Nally’s comments came after Apple was accused by the European Commission of striking a deal with the Irish government in the 1990s that enabled it to pay

minimal tax.The FT noted that the

PwC Chairman’s comments contrasted with those of Steve Varley, Chairman of EY in the United Kingdom, who told The Times that he would not change his tax advice to multinational clients such as Apple unless laws were amended.

Legal void stalls Indian loan audits

Lou Jiwei

Dennis Nally

AFP

AFP

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a new regional multilateral development lender, was launched last month after the China-led initiative gained the support of 19 other countries.

The bank’s initial capitalization is US$50 billion, with China contributing most of it. Beijing officials said they hoped to grow the

bank’s resources to US$100 billion.Other members include Bangladesh,

Brunei, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pa-kistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. The Middle Eastern nations of Kuwait, Oman and Qatar also signed up.

NEWSBUSINESS

China economic growth slowsto 7.3 percent in third quarter

China’s economy grew at its slow-est pace in five years in the third quarter, recording a 7.3 percent year-on-year rate, the National Bureau of Statistics announced last month. It was less than the second quarter rate of 7.5 percent and the lowest figure since the first quarter of 2009, when growth fell to 6.6 percent.

Economists speculated that the results would pressure policymakers to keep growth on track with stimulus measures. “I still see downward risk going

forward,” Citibank Economist Shuang Ding told The Wall Street Journal. “Fourth quarter growth could be lower than the third.”

Policymakers have said in recent months that China needs at least 7.2 percent growth to create enough jobs.

Other economic data were positive. The General Adminis-tration of Customs reported that exports increased 15.3 percent in September from a year earlier, the biggest jump since February 2013, while imports rose 7 per-

cent, boosted, according to China News Service, largely by the release of the Apple iPhone 6 range.

Value-added industrial output in China rose by 8 percent in September from a year earlier, accelerating from a 6.9 percent year-on-year increase in August. Overall industrial

production rose more than 0.9 percent in September from August, when it rose 0.2 percent from July.

Data bureau announces lowest rate since Q1 2009

New Asian development bank launched

EC criticizes five countries in call for rigorous budgets

The European Commission has serious doubts about the draft budgets for five mem-bers of the euro currency zone, according to media reports last month.

The EC warned France, Italy, Austria, Slovenia and Malta that they face sanctions unless they produce fiscal plans with a deficit of less than 3 percent of gross domestic prod-uct and public debt below 60 percent of GDP.

In September, Emmanuel Macron, the French Economic Minister, unveiled a budget

plan that sets the deficit at 4.3 percent of GDP. The Paris newspaper Le Monde reported last month that the EC had reiterated to the French government that not enough effort was made to enact structural reforms.

The Italian government meanwhile fought back over delaying a balanced budget until 2017. Finance Minister Pier Paolo Padoan told EC Vice President Jyrki Kaitanen that Italy faced high unemployment and low economic growth, according to local news.

November 2014 9

Jyrki Kaitanen

AFP

Chinese President Xi Jinping with guests of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 24 October

AFP

AFP

AFP

November 2014 11

Macau casino revenues take a dive

Italy will use its six-month term on the rotating European Union pres-idency to give a “big push” to talks aimed at a China-European Union free trade agreement, according to a report last month.

China Daily quoted Riccardo Monti, President of the Italian Trade Agency, as saying that Italy regarded the pact as a high priority. “Italy and Europe will benefit from the liberalization of trade [with China],” Monti told the paper.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang

discussed the trade agreement issue with Italian Prime Minis-ter Matteo Renzi during a visit to Rome last month, the paper reported.

Italy pledges to push China-EU trade deal

Oil price drop fuels action on subsidies

Two large retailers in the United States have re-duced their sales growth forecasts for the current fiscal year, blaming the lower outlooks, in part, on expectations for a relatively weak holiday season.

Online auctioneer eBay cut US$300 million from its annual revenue forecast for 2014, while bricks-and-mortar chain Wal-Mart expects sales to rise 2-3 percent in the year ending 31 January 2015, rather than 3-5 percent.

Target Corporation said it would maintain its 2013 levels of holiday hiring, which were 20 per-

cent less than that of 2012, as it anticipates another weak season.

The U.S. National Retail Federation predicted that strengthening consumer confidence would trigger a “healthy” 4.1 percent year-on-year increase on November and December retail sales to US$616.9 billion, outpacing the 3.1 percent rise seen in 2013.

But the industry group also warned “there still remains some uneasiness and anxiety among consumers.”

Retailers in the U.S. brace for Christmas crunch

Macau’s gambling revenue fell 11.7 percent year-on-year in September, the biggest drop in five years, according to data released last month by the region’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.

Gross gaming revenue in September to-talled 25.56 billion patacas, compared with 28.96 billion patacas in the same month last year, the bureau announced.

The fall has been attributed to the Chinese government’s continuing anti-cor-

ruption campaign, a liquidity crunch among junket oper-ators and the effect of fewer visitors from the Mainland as a result of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

Analysts expect the decline to continue into Oc-tober as Macau’s government enforces a smoking ban on the larger casino floors.

Britain’s tax collection agency estimates that it failed to collect more than £11 billion it was owed last year due to a boom in cash-in-hand payments and rising organized crime.

The agency, Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, said about £5.9 billion of tax was lost in the cash economy, while another £5.4 billion was related to unreported proceeds by criminals, such as the smuggling of tobacco products.

George Bull, Senior Tax Part-ner at Baker Tilly and an Institute

of Chartered Accountants in En-gland and Wales member, said he was sceptical of the estimates. “Calculating the size of the hid-den economy can only ever be a finger-in-the-wind estimate,” he told The Times.

HMRC blames cash, crime for tax shortfall

The government of India moved last month to cut sub-sidies of diesel fuel, taking advantage of a decline in the price of crude oil.

The removal of price controls meant that from 19 October, a litre of diesel would cost about 5.7 percent less than previously, The Times of India calculated.

India imports about 80 percent of its oil and diesel subsidies cost about US$10 billion in 2013, according to government data.

Wynn casino in Macau

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi

AFP

AFP

New York investment bank Goldman Sachs Group posted a third-quarter net profit increase of 48 percent, although one-time gains accounted for much of the income boost.

Net income totalled US$2.24 billion, compared with US$1.52 billion in the year-earlier period. Net revenue rose 25 percent to US$8.39 billion. The firm raised its quarterly dividend by five U.S. cents to 60 U.S. cents a share.

Observers noted sharp gains from the bank’s fixed-income trading unit. Gold-man reported a 74 percent jump in fixed income, currencies and commodities – known collectively as FICC – revenue to US$2.17 billion. (By comparison, The Wall Street Journal reported, Bank of America Corporation’s FICC revenue

rose 11 percent in the same quarter, while Citigroup’s increased just 5 percent.)

However, the FICC results included a US$157 million one-time boost tied to the repurchase of US$1.22 billion in trust-preferred securities earlier this year after regulators determined they did not qualify in evaluating the bank’s capital ratios. The price the firm paid for the securities was below the amount marked on its books, allowing Goldman to book a gain. A US$113 million gain in equities was also tied to the debt repurchase.

Overall, investment-banking revenue rose 26 percent, while advisory revenue increased 40 percent. Equity-underwrit-ing revenue of US$426 million was up 54 percent from a year earlier.

NEWSCOMPANIES

12 November 2014

Profits fall at scandal-tainted British drug company

GlaxoSmithKline last month reported pre-tax profit of £548 million for the third quarter of 2014, sharply down from £1.4 bil-lion in the equivalent period a year ago.

The British pharmaceuti-cal company, which in Sep-tember was fined US$492 million for bribing Chinese doctors, also unveiled a raft of measures designed to restore profitability.

A £1 billion cost-cutting programme was announced, while executives pledged to spin off part of the company’s human immunodefi-ciency virus business and vowed to be the first company to release an ebola vaccine by the end of the year.

GSK is attempting to convince investors

that it can counter plunging sales of Advair, its blockbuster respiratory drug, The Times noted.

Revenues fell by 10 percent to £5.6 billion during the third quarter, dragged down by a 25 percent fall in sales of Advair in the United States. Operating profits fell by 6 percent to £1.8 billion.

Morgan Stanley last month reported an 89 percent in-crease in third-quarter profit to US$1.71 billion, up from US$906 million a year ago. Third-quarter revenue rose 7 percent to US$8.69 billion.

The investment bank remains Wall Street’s top stock-trader, with equity-trad-ing revenue climbing 4.3 percent to US$1.78 billion.

Fixed income, currencies and commodities trading rev-enue totalled US$997 million, up 19 percent from a year earlier. The firm attributed the rise in FICC to gains from for-eign exchange and securitized products.

Morgan Stanley sees 89 percent profit hike

Fixed-income trading contributes to 48 percent rise

Goldman profit soarsamid higher volatility

Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO

AFP

Beijing-based Anbang Insurance Group Co. last month bought the Waldorf Astoria New York, an iconic Manhat-tan hotel, for US$1.95 billion.

Hilton Worldwide, owned by the Blackstone private equity group, will continue to manage the hotel under the deal.

The 1,413-room Art Deco building on Park Avenue, which opened in 1931, will undergo a renovation, the U.S. hotel chain announced.

The Financial Times speculated that An-bang would shrink the number of hotel rooms and offer some of the space as condominiums to capitalize on New York’s booming luxury

property market.Anbang, founded in 2004, has about 700

billion yuan in assets and provides financial and insurance services to more than 20 mil-lion customers, according to the company’s website.

Bank of China last month completed the biggest-ever single tranche U.S. dollar capital sale by selling offshore preference shares.

The US$6.5 billion tranche, with a yield of 6.75 percent, beat the US$6 billion sales of Citigroup’s 8.4 percent perpetual notes in April 2008 and Bank of America’s 8 percent perpetual bonds in January 2008, according to Bloomberg.

“It’s a massive accomplishment,” Herman van den Wall Bake, Managing Director, Asia Fixed-Income Capital Markets, at Deutsche Bank in Singapore told Bloomberg.

The Basel III-compliant Tier 1 capital strengthens Bank of China’s balance sheet. Preference shares are converted into com-mon equity if the bank’s core capital falls below certain trigger ratios.

Barbie dolls in the “Doll Dreams” museum in Gross IIsede, Germany

November 2014 13

Barbie faces midlife crisis

BoC raises US$6.5 billion to boost balance sheet

China’s Anbang Insurance buys Waldorf Astoria for US$1.95 billion

Worldwide sales of Barbie dolls fell 21 percent in the third quarter of 2014, contributing to a 22 percent drop in overall profit at Mattel, one of the world’s largest toymakers.

Analysts speculated that Barbie was cold-shouldered out of the mar-ket by Mattel’s range of toys based on Frozen, The Walt Disney Co.’s animated feature film.

“Clearly we have work to do as we enter the fourth quarter,” Mattel Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bryan Stockton was quoted as saying by The Times.

AT&T wireless revenues rise but profit falls 21 percent

AT&T lowered its revenue out-look for the year after posting a 21 percent year-on-year decline in profits.

The Dallas-based company, which provides Internet, tele-phone, wireless and pay-TV ser-vices, said net income fell to US$3 billion, even as revenue rose 2.5

percent to US$32.9 billion.According to USA Today,

wireless operations makes up 56 percent of the company’s total revenue. There was a net increase of 785,000 customers who signed up for its postpaid plans in the quarter, the company said, more than twice the year-ago figure.

Virgin Money cancels listing amid equity slump

Virgin Money, the British finan-cial services company, last month postponed a planned £2 billion initial public offering.

The lender, founded by Sir Richard Branson in 1995, cited the recent worldwide collapse of equity prices as the reason.

Virgin Money’s decision

follows the cancellation of a stock market listing by rival Aldermore.

“Virgin Money continues to perform strongly and we remain focused on delivering a successful initial public offering as soon as market conditions allow,” Chief Executive Officer Jayne-Anne Gadhia told The Times.

Waldorf Astoria, New York

AFP

AFP