EY break-up plan postponed to next year

EY has reportedly postponed its break-up plan to next year, according to the Financial Times. 

EY’s UK and US partners were meant to start voting on a firm-wide plan to break up the company as proposed in September, but the ballot has been delayed to next year while leader’s are still working out the legal paperwork of this split.  

 The Financial Times reports that the separation of EY’s audit and consulting businesses require the backing of its 13,000 partners in country-by-country votes. 

The ballots, which were supposed to start this month and conclude early next year with the US and UK among the first to vote, had “slipped”, according to people at EY.  According to the firm, the UK partner votes won’t take place until the first quarter of 2023 and that global boss Carmine Di Sibio’ four-year term which was due to expire in June has been extended for an extra two years for him to complete the firm’s split. 

The main reasons behind the delay are said to be the finalisation of the firm’s global framework agreement, and the legal document covering details of how assets, liabilities and people will be split between the businesses. 

In addition, it will also need to prepare paperwork to explain to partners which business they will be assigned to and the terms of the deal, including the likely size of payouts. It is thought that many staff out of the firm’s 365,000 employees still don’t know to which half of the business they will be assigned to after the split.