When the TPG Capital story “leaked” on Monday, it seemed awfully suspicious that a letter of that caliber would even make its way out into the world unless, you know, someone at a professional services firm with a bruised ego wanted to stir up some interest for a consulting business spin-off. Not saying there’s a conspiracy, just saying. It was only a handful of months ago that Everest crashed and burned, bringing with it job cuts and cost-saving measures. This is on top of the already tight belts at EY, frugality that began at the early stages of the Everest discussions in anticipation of the comically large sacks of money a consulting split would soon bring in.
Anyway, doesn’t matter, not going to happen. The first Everest plan didn’t work out and it’s been lentils and beans at EY since. Because the economy also sucks and demand for consulting services isn’t strong — especially from consulting firms that can’t even work out a clean split of their own divisions for the purposes of buckets of cash — it seems there will be another round of cuts and belt-tightening at EY UK. Another.
Michael O’Dwyer reports in Financial Times:
EY has told staff in the UK to expect less generous pay rises than last year and is launching a small round of redundancies as it faces rising costs and a difficult economic outlook.
Leaders at the Big Four firm’s British business, which employs about 18,500 people, also informed staff this week that bonus pools would be smaller than last year and would be split among a more limited group, according to people familiar with the matter.
Big ups to people familiar with the matter for blabbing. These familiar people told FT bonus pools for certain teams are getting cut by more than half. Anyone getting a paltry bonus is lucky though, luckier than the five or so percent of people in EY’s financial services consulting practice who will not have a job.
The firm will axe more than 5 per cent of its roughly 2,300-strong financial services consulting practice, with 150 jobs set to be cut in teams that advise on business transformation and risk management.
EY should have hired themselves to advise themselves on the risk of a failed split and the fallout thereof.
We’re hearing limited grumblings of a bit of fat-cutting on this side of the Atlantic, nothing that couldn’t be attributed to the shedding of low performers for now. If you’ve heard otherwise you know what to do.
I’m not sure how smaller bonuses is the same as “Go F*ck Yourselves”. None of the B4 are paying bonuses higher than last year. Every firm has had layoffs. It would be nice if you’d balance your reporting between EY and the rest of the B4.
I came here to post this but you beat me to it and said it better than I could. This feed has become irritatingly jaded the past year or so.