Wyman warns of 'high-profile corporate casualties'
ICAEW president Peter Wyman is predicting 'high profile corporate casualties in the UK' as a strong public sector masks private sector weakness.
Link: WorldCom special report
Speaking at an ICAEW corporate finance faculty conference last week, Wyman warned several businesses would ‘give up the struggle’ for survival before the economic cycle revives.
A sudden slowdown in the US, accelerated by scandals at Enron and Worldcom, has dented the optimism that kept economies going in the late 1990s.
‘The cause for this lies overseas,’ Wyman argued. ‘While we have some high-profile corporate casualties in the UK the reality is that there will be more to come,’ he said.
Struggling WorldCom appointed Michael Capellas as chief executive last month, after a search led by former executive John Sidgmore. Meanwhile former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow pleaded innocent last month to charges of masterminding complex financial schemes that helped cause the energy giant to collapse.
But Wyman urged trust in the UK’s system of self-regulation, as he called on the government to refrain from ‘panic measures’ such as the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act.