In this post, we provide an update to our previous article about auditor tenure and auditor rotation among the Russell 1000.
Unsurprisingly, absent mandatory auditor rotation, there was little variance in tenure statistics between 2016 and 2017.
Around 18 Russell 1000 companies changed their auditor in 2016; this number dropped slightly in 2017 to 15. Approximately two-thirds of these changes involved auditors engaged longer than ten years, including two in which the outgoing auditor had tenure of more than 75 years. In April, Leucadia National Corporation ended their 81-year relationship with PwC and engaged Deloitte. General Motors reported in September that they would be changing from Deloitte to E&Y after 100 years.
The remaining changes with engaged auditors for ten plus years include Fidelity National Financial, Kansas City Southern, Hershey, Carlisle Companies, and Agios Pharmaceuticals.
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