Australia’s Westpac dumps PwC as auditor after 55 years By Reuters

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: An workplace constructing with Westpac emblem is seen within the Central Enterprise District of Sydney, Australia, June 3, 2020. Image taken June 3, 2020. REUTERS/Loren Elliott/File Photograph

By Lewis Jackson

SYDNEY (Reuters) -Westpac Group, Australia’s fourth-largest financial institution by market capitalisation, lower ties on Wednesday with scandal-tainted auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Australia, ending a relationship stretching again to 1968.

The audit and consulting main, which on Wednesday introduced lots of of job cuts citing “financial headwinds”, has been underneath hearth this 12 months after revelations a former companion leaked authorities tax plans and used them to win work with international firms trying to restructure their Australian tax affairs.

Westpac, in a two-paragraph assertion, didn’t point out the tax leak concern or give a purpose for its choice to finish its relationship with PwC. It stated it could tender for a brand new exterior auditor as a part of “greatest apply for audit agency rotation”.

PwC has audited Westpac since 2002, earlier than which PwC companions and their ancestor companies had audited the financial institution since 1968.

Australia requires that auditors spend not more than 5 consecutive years out of seven on an organization, although auditing companies can stay for longer durations by rotating employees concerned.

Nonetheless, PwC’s lead Westpac audit companion assumed the position lower than two years in the past, in December 2021, in response to a Westpac governance assertion this month.

A PwC Australia spokesperson stated the agency understood the board’s choice and was pleased with its time as Westpac’s auditor.

Westpac paid PwC about A$34 million ($22 million) in audit and audit-related charges within the 2023 monetary 12 months, roughly 1% of the native consultancy’s A$3.4 billion in income that 12 months.

Since coming to gentle in January, the tax plan scandal has pressured out PwC Australia’s chief govt and a string of senior companions, prompted public- and private-sector shoppers to freeze ties and entangled big-name clients together with Alphabet (NASDAQ:)’s Google, Uber Applied sciences (NYSE:) and Fb proprietor Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:).

PwC Australia cited financial difficulties, and the agency’s smaller measurement since spinning off its authorities consulting apply to a personal fairness group on the peak of the scandal, in saying lots of of layoffs.

Renamed Scyne Advisory, roughly 1,400 of PwC Australia’s greater than 9,000 employees moved over to the brand new agency.

The 338 roles made redundant on Wednesday made up about 4% of the some 7,600 employees left on the agency. These laid off included dozens of employees who had presents to maneuver throughout to Scyne Advisory rescinded.

($1 = 1.5555 Australian {dollars})