October 3, 2005
The CEO’s Private Golf Shuttle
On Saturday, the WSJ ran this article about how CEOs are using company jets for personal use. Reflecting the efforts that the media is now willing to put in to chase a CEO pay story, the WSJ reporter cross-referenced a public database of golf scores to generate many of the lurid details for the front page article.
In the article, my favorite quote is courtesy of Professor Charles Elson, who called it “disgusting” for a company to guarantee its CEO 100 hours of free personal flight time. “A corporate aircraft isn’t supposed to be a shuttle to a vacation home,” says Mr. Elson. “We pay CEOs enough. They can afford to pay to fly to their vacation homes.”
I leave it to Ron Mueller and Mark Borges to flesh out the disclosure implications of airplane personal use on their panel – “What Now Needs to Be Disclosed in the Proxy Statement” – during the “2nd Annual Executive Compensation Conference.” Remember how reasonably this conference is priced – only $495 for CompensationStandards.com members that attend live in Chicago or by video webcast – and only $995 for everyone in your company or firm to access the conference by video webcast! Register today!
Today’s Webcast: “Internal Controls Update: The Big 4 Speak”
From 2-3 pm eastern today, tune in to the webcast: “Internal Controls Update: The Big 4 Speak.”
PCAOB Releases KPMG Inspection Report
The PCAOB has released the first 2004 inspection report for one of the Big 4 firms – this report for KPMG. The other 2004 Big 4 reports should be available soon.
As noted in this Washington Post article, the PCAOB’s report cites numerous faults in 18 audits performed by KPMG. In one case, mistakes exposed by the PCAOB led an unnamed client to restate earnings. The inspection entailed a review of only 76 audits of KPMG’s nearly 1,900 publicly traded clients between June and October 2004.