Big Four accounting firm EY scraps break-up plan

Hello from London.?EY called off plans to split its audit and consulting businesses ?on Tuesday after US executives voted not to proceed with the proposal. The move represents an embarrassing — and costly — climbdown for the firm, which racked up global costs of $600mn on the failed deal. The FT’s Lex writers explain?why the Big Four firm failed to scale its so-called Project Everest ?(Free to read).

Global chair and chief executive Carmine Di Sibio had confounded expectations by attempting to deliver the historic split of the firm. Now that the failure of the deal has thrown his legacy into doubt,?does EY risk a power vacuum ? Stay up to date with the latest EY news at?ft.com .

My choices this week

1. China carried out military drills around Taiwan last weekend, a retaliation against President Tsai Ing-wen’s trip to the US. In a powerful column, the FT’s chief foreign affairs commentator, Gideon Rachman, argues that?Taiwan does, and should, matter to the world .
2. CBI chief Tony Danker was sacked with immediate effect on Tuesday, following an investigation into sexual harassment claims at the business lobby group. Business columnist Helen Thomas?makes the case for a reformed CBI .
3. “The hand of China reaches all the way here.” ?In a fascinating investigation into Beijing’s surveillance beyond its borders, FT correspondents speak to Uyghurs overseas facing pressure from the Chinese state to spy on one another?(Free to read).
4. As the new governor of the Bank of Japan,?can Kazuo Ueda tackle the structural issues facing the country’s economy ? The FT’s chief economics commentator, Martin Wolf, asks what Ueda might learn from the German approach to managing excess savings.
5. Rampant inflation, a tumbling lira, and a botched earthquake response:?Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdo?an is facing one of his toughest elections ?so far. In this dispatch from Konya, the FT’s Turkey correspondent, Adam Samson, reports on voters’ disillusionment.
6. Tree-planting to fight climate change is a popular cause of governments, corporations and charities. Existing pledges, if fulfilled, would cover more land than the Amazon rainforest. In our latest visual storytelling project, we ask:?are these promises remotely plausible ?

Thanks for reading,

Patrick

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