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EY's global revenue increased by 3.9% to $51.2bn in the year ending June, marking the slowest growth in over a decade. Janet Truncale, global chair and chief executive of EY, stated: "Over the past year, EY teams have demonstrated extraordinary resilience in a challenging economic climate." The consulting sector, traditionally a growth driver, saw fees stagnate at $15.6bn, while audit and tax services grew by 6.3% each, contributing significantly to overall revenue. The firm also reduced its workforce for the first time in 14 years, employing 392,995 people, down from 395,442. The weakest performance was in Asia, where fees remained flat at $7.2bn, while growth was noted in the Americas and Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa.

 

Bloomberg Tax

Financial Times

The Times of London

John R. Tyson, who left his role as Tyson Foods' chief financial officer in August, has pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated and careless driving after his June arrest on the charges. Mr. Tyson, great-grandson of the meat company’s founder, appeared Thursday in Washington County District Court in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and was ordered to pay $820 in fines and fees and complete 32 hours of community service. At the time of his appointment in October 2022, Mr. Tyson was the youngest finance chief of a Fortune 500 company.

 

Wall Street Journal

Amazon and tech startup Databricks have agreed to a five-year deal that aims to cut costs for businesses seeking to build their own artificial-intelligence (AI) capabilities. Databricks, which acquired AI startup MosaicML last year for around $1.3bn, will utilize Amazon’s Trainium AI chips to power a service that helps companies customize an AI model or build their own. Databricks makes money by renting out analytics, AI and other cloud-based software that taps AI-ready data for companies to build their enterprise technology tools. The San Francisco-based firm said it was valued at $43bn last September. The two companies have an existing partnership where customers can run Databricks data services on Amazon’s cloud-computing platform, Amazon Web Services.

 

Wall Street Journal

In September, retail sales in the U.S. grew by 0.4% on the month, according to the Commerce Department, marking their third consecutive monthly rise, with low unemployment and steady income growth encouraging consumer spending. Analysts polled by Dow Jones expected a 0.3% rise. On an annual basis, sales grew 1.7%. Spending grew at miscellaneous store retailers, which showed an increase of 4%, as well as at clothing stores (1.5%) and bars and restaurants (1%). However, they declined 3.3% at electronics and appliances stores, and 1.4% at furniture and home furnishing businesses. 

 

Bloomberg

CNBC

Los Angeles Times

Reuters

Initial jobless claims retreated by 19,000 to 241,000 in the seven days to October 12th, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had estimated new claims would rise by 2,000 to 260,000. Claims had jumped to more than a one-year high in the prior week, attributed to Hurricane Helene, which devastated Florida and large swathes of the U.S. Southeast in late September. The four-week moving average of new applications rose to 236,250, the highest since August, while continuing claims, reported with a one-week lag, inched up 9,000 to around 1.87m. 

 

ABC News

Bloomberg

Market Watch

Elon Musk’s X has updated its terms of service to steer any disputes from users of the social media platform to a federal court in Texas whose judges frequently deliver victories to conservative litigants in political cases. New terms of service to take effect on 15 November specify that any lawsuits against X by users must be exclusively filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas or state courts in Tarrant County, Texas. It is common for companies to include venue clauses in their terms of service specifying which forum would hear any disputes filed against them. However, Reuters notes, the choice of the northern district of Texas stands out because X is not located in the district.

 

Reuters

Meta is laying off employees across units including Instagram, WhatsApp and Reality Labs, the Verge reports, citing people familiar with the matter. A Meta spokesperson told Reuters that a few of its teams were making changes to align with long-term strategic goals and location strategy. "This includes moving some teams to different locations, and moving some employees to different roles. In situations like these when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees," the spokesperson said. Separately, the FT reports that Meta fired another two dozen staff in Los Angeles for allegedly using their daily $25 meal credits to instead buy household items including wine glasses and laundry detergent.

 

Financial Times

Reuters

The Verge

Matt Garman, the chief executive of Amazon's AWS unit, has defended the company's new five-day-per-week in-office policy and suggested those who do not wish to adhere to the new rules can quit. "If there are people who just don't work well in that environment and don't want to, that's okay, there are other companies around," said Garman. "By the way, I don't mean that in a bad way," he said, adding "we want to be in an environment where we're working together."  Garman said nine out of 10 workers he has spoken with support the new policy, which takes effect in January. "When we want to really, really innovate on interesting products, I have not seen an ability for us to do that when we're not in-person," he said at an all-hands meeting. The company has been enforcing a three-day in-office policy, but CEO Andy Jassy said last month that Amazon would move to five days to "invent, collaborate and be connected."

 

Reuters

Bloomberg reports that, according to a previously-undisclosed internal Starbucks staff survey conducted in April, only 33% of workers say their stores consistently have sufficient staffing levels. Additionally, less than half of the workers polled say their store’s equipment is reliable, compounding the problem. The share of retail staff who would recommend Starbucks as a great place to work fell three percentage points in April from a year earlier, to 64%. The poll doesn’t include workers at locations run by third parties such as those located at airports or grocery stores. In a statement, Starbucks said the survey indicates “consistent improvement” in key areas of worker experience, with a bigger percentage of employees also saying they were getting paid appropriately for their work, compared to past surveys. A spokesperson also said that the company is refining the model it uses to allocate staffing to make sure it more precisely meets each store’s needs.

 

Bloomberg

The integration of new technology in accounting requires significant investment in training, as "systems are only as effective as the people using them," writes First Republic Investment Management director Ting Song. Many companies mistakenly believe that simply adopting new tools will enhance efficiency, but this often overlooks the human element involved. Resistance to change among employees can hinder successful adoption, especially when fears of job loss arise. Management's commitment of resources—both financial and personnel—is crucial for success. Internal team members, familiar with existing systems, can provide valuable insights that external consultants may lack. Ultimately, implementing new processes demands time and patience, but overcoming initial challenges can lead to improved efficiency and productivity in the long run.

 

CPA Practice Advisor

U.S. antitrust regulators have dialed back plans to collect a mass of data from companies planning mergers - but even the weakened rules could be tricky for private equity firms, according to attorneys. Last week the Federal Trade Commission voted unanimously to expand the amount of information collected under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, which established the federal review process for mergers and acquisitions. The new reporting system “marks a generational upgrade that will sharpen the antitrust agencies’ investigations and allow us to more effectively protect against mergers that may substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly,” said FTC chair Lina Khan. However, antitrust lawyers say it will saddle private equity with more paperwork, fees and headaches, without necessarily resulting in more blocked deals. The FTC estimates the changes will add 68 hours to the length of time it takes to prepare M&A paperwork. 

 

Wall Street Journal

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is addressing the complexities of cancelling online subscriptions with a new rule called Click to Cancel. FTC Commissioner Lina Khan announced that the rule will allow consumers to cancel subscriptions in the same manner and number of steps as they signed up. Khan said: “Over recent years, we've seen increasingly that some firms make it extraordinarily easy to sign up but absurdly difficult to cancel.” The initiative is part of the FTC's Time Is Money campaign, aimed at protecting consumers from time-wasting practices. However, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has expressed concerns, claiming the rule could “cost the American people more time and money.” Despite the pushback, the FTC aims to eliminate deceptive practices that have plagued consumers, particularly during the COVID pandemic.

 

The Hill

Fast Company

Los Angeles Times

NPR

American consumers' expectations about the risk of debt delinquency have risen to their highest level in more than four years, according to a new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Its September Survey of Consumer Expectations showed that the average perceived probability of missing a minimum debt payment during the next three months increased for the fourth consecutive month to 14.2%, the highest level since April 2020 when it was 16.1%. Outside of the pandemic, last month's reading was the highest since January 2017. The probability of losing one's job in the next 12 months was flat in September when compared with August, though the probability of voluntarily leaving a job ticked up from 19.1% in August to 20.4% in September, the highest level since July. “For people with good incomes and good credit scores, things are going well; they’re still able to access plenty of credit and, by and large, paying on time,” said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate. “If you’re in the half who’s using a card for convenience and rewards, life is good. Now the other half, that can be a much more troublesome situation when you think about potentially longer-term credit card debt.”

 

CNN

Fox News