The auditor can be right
The news that Baker Tilly has been right to question Sanctuary’s accounting ought to cause investors to think harder about auditors
The music group’s investors asked precious few questions earlier this year
when the company proposed dropping the mid-tier firm.
Behind much of the discussion stood a feeling, uttered on occasion off the
record, that a Big Four firm would have created greater transparency.
That now looks silly since sources at Sanctuary said earlier this year that
an unnamed Big Four firm would have signed off the numbers, in contravention of
the Financial Reporting Review Panel’s view.The latest news will cause whichever
that firm was some discomfort, I would imagine.
Meanwhile, investors should perhaps think twice before allowing management to
bully their auditors. They are there, after all, to provide investors with a
service, not the board.
Alex Hawkes is a reporter on Accountancy Age