4/23/2019 KPMG: "do as I say, not as I do" just check out Aldi - Michael West

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KPMG: “do as I say,not as I do” just

check out AldiApr 18, 2019 | Featured, Finance

Aldi: not much in store on disclosure. Photo: Aldi

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Agenda paper 12.3.6 AASB Meeting 30 April 2019 (M170)

4/23/2019 KPMG: "do as I say, not as I do" just check out Aldi - Michael West

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Quod ego dico, non quod ego faciam. That should beKPMG’s motto. Do what I say, not what I do. It has a ring toit, but more importantly, it goes to the heart of the �rm’sbusiness model: quae abscondam – hide stuff.

Check out this little beauty from the KPMG Twitter feed thisweek:

Gender diversity is one theme here. It is good to see arobust and balanced representation of women in theforeground of the photo … looking up at the �ve old blokeson the stage, but the thing which is perhaps surprising isthat KPMG would have the gall to proselytise abouttransparency, let alone “Robust and balanced externalreporting”.

The same might be said of all the Big Four accounting �rmsbut as KPMG has kindly offered itself as an exemplar … well,what have we here, fresh from the world’s most expensivesource of public information, the Australian Securities &Investments Commission? It is Aldi’s 2018 �nancialstatements.

4/23/2019 KPMG: "do as I say, not as I do" just check out Aldi - Michael West

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These accounts are the apogee of transparency, the veryzenith of robustness.  Look no further than the Pro�t & LossStatement for this large entity, Aldi Pty Ltd.

It has surely not been sullied by a profusion of numbers.Perhaps Aldi and its auditors from KPMG have mistakenthemselves for artists and gone for an avant-garde,minimalist look. No revenue, no cost of sales, no nasty taxdisclosures here. It is robust in its blank spaces.

And just in case the reader were lulled into thinking thismust be a printing mistake, we offer for the pleasure ofreaders the Aldi Cash Flow Statement 2018:

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4/23/2019 KPMG: "do as I say, not as I do" just check out Aldi - Michael West

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Even more splendid in its simplicity; elegant, completelypure, entirely uncontaminated by the presence of numbers.

How could such trusty transparency and robust externalreporting possibly come about? One would have thoughtthat Australia’s third largest supermarket chain, ajuggernaut with more than $7 billion in annual grocerysales, might properly account for its activities in thiscountry.

Actually, no.

The way it is set up, Aldi Stores – a limited partnership – isthe trading entity that holds the business assets of Aldi inAustralia. The partners of the partnership are two registeredcompanies, Aldi Pty Ltd (above) and Aldi Foods Pty Ltd; theformer has an 80 per cent interest in the partnershipincome and the latter has 20 per cent.

Aldi and its transparency loving auditors argue that Aldi PtyLtd does not have control of the partnership and so itdoesn’t need to bother with producing consolidatedaccounts.

It is an arti�cial, legal arrangement to avoid transparency inthe external reports of Aldi in Australia. Fumus et specula –smoke and mirrors.

What we can glean from this, is that when KPMG makesbreezy exhortations about transparency and robust externalreporting they are referring to what other people ought to bedoing, certainly not themselves and their multinationalclients.

Let’s look at a smattering of the �rm’s multinational clientsjust to make sure that we are not being too mean and snide.Bear in mind that General Purpose (full �nancialstatements) are far more meaningful than Special Purpose�nancial statements and that is why the laws changed acouple of years ago to require “signi�cant global entities” toproduce General Purpose.

(The laws had to be changed because the Big Four weregaming them, encouraging their big multinational clients toswitch from General Purpose to Special Purpose.)

Moreover, Special Purpose reporting entails a judgement ofdirectors and their auditors that nobody apart from thecompany’s shareholders – in this case the Germans – have

4/23/2019 KPMG: "do as I say, not as I do" just check out Aldi - Michael West

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any interest or entitlement in reading them. Not Aldi’sthousands of suppliers and creditors, not its millions ofcustomers.

Here is a list of accounts audited by KPMG:

This has all come about because the Big Four are out ofcontrol and do what they like; gouge billions in consultingfees from governments state and federal, let themselves betotally con�icted by providing tax dodging advice to thesame companies they audit, and then tell the governmenthow it should be conducting its tax policy.

They are aided and abetted by feeble regulators such as theFinancial Reporting Council which also sallies forth andasserts how well �nancial reporting is going. They wouldsay that.

The grand irony however is that KPMG, like its Big Fourpeers, is a partnership itself, an arcane 19th centurystructure whose raison d’etre is to hide stuff. The �nancialdisclosures they make are puny, just one number once ayear – revenue. And that revenue has been soaring aboutten per cent a year for each �rm in a two per cent in�ationenvironment.

There are few institutions more opaque, less transparentthan the Big Four. The Russian Ma�a perhaps. Thoughcertainly none of any such in�uence and size. Not even theVatican. The notorious Vatican Bank is far more transparentthan its auditor PwC.

4/23/2019 KPMG: "do as I say, not as I do" just check out Aldi - Michael West

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George Pell silences PwC, EY, KPMG& Deloitte

Facebook Twitter LinkedinEmail Global accounting giantPricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)had won its most illustriousmandate yet, the first everexternal audit of the finances

of the Vatican, until its work was suddenly put on ice fourmonths ago. It was a “blow for financial transparency” criedthe International Catholic News Weekly: “The work of PwC …Continue reading

Of course transparency, disclosure, robust externalreporting – these are all the enemies of multinational taxavoidance structures. Why else, but to hide things, wouldAldi possibly create a structure designed so there is apartnership which owns all the Aldi stores in Australia, allthe business assets that is, with two Australian companiesas the partners in the partnership.

Why? The idea is that the partnership is not subject toexternal reporting requirements – like KPMG. It is astructure concocted to be opaque, to remove anyrequirement for robust reporting.

KPMG, no sign of EY. Pfizer, pay itback

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4/23/2019 KPMG: "do as I say, not as I do" just check out Aldi - Michael West

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4/23/2019 KPMG: "do as I say, not as I do" just check out Aldi - Michael West

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