INSIDER Files

Armanino McKenna, based in San Ramon, Calif., picked up 718 new clients in 2005 - more than half of them in the last half of the year. It's also opened two new offices in the past year: one in San Francisco and one in San Jose. The firm's sweet spot is mid-size tech companies under $500 million in

Aronson & Co. of Rockville, Md., lost a court battle when a jury decided earlier this month that the firm owes $3.9 million to a partner who was fired in 2001. "There's not a chance this ruling will stand," Dale Cooter, a partner at the Washington law firm of Cooler, Mangold, Tompert & Karas who represented A&Co., told IPA. The firm will ask for a new trial or appeal, he added. The firm was sued by the estate of Keith Fetridge, which charged that A&Co. breached an employment contract by failing to pay terminating employment compensation. Fetridge died two years ago at age 49. The jury awarded the estate $1.3 million in compensatory damages and triple punitive damages. "This was a partnership dispute, not a wage issue," Cooter said. "The jury said it was a wage issue. It's bizarre and has no chance of holding up." A&Co., formerly known as Aronson, Fetridge & Weigle, has FY05 net revenue of $38 million, 20 partners and 22 total staff.

Most financial executives don't think the cost of SOX is worth the benefits, according to a recent survey of 237 financial executives by CFO Magazine. The survey shows that finance executives at companies with annual revenues of $500 million or more indicate SOX compliance is biting more than 2% out of yearly earnings, and those at companies with sales under $500 million put the hit at 4.5%. Most hated: section 404. Nearly 75% of those surveyed want to see it revised or repealed, and 70% want to raise the threshold of what constitutes a significant deficiency. Nearly half want the attestation of internal controls performed once every three years rather than annually. CFO reports that 48% of respondents would leave restrictions as they are on services an audit partner may provide, and 57% wouldn't change mandatory audit partner rotation every five or seven years. But 55% would allow executives to certify financial reports as being to the best of their knowledge and belief, and 74% would oppose a proposal to require the rotation of audit firms. For a printable version of the survey, visit www.cfo.com/sarboxsurvey.

Which comes first: your job or the basketball game? An article in the St. Paul, Minn., Pioneer Press gives some insight into the importance of work-life balance for the Class of 2005 - and its fears (or lack thereof) of being unemployed. John Cafferty, a 2005 Villanova graduate who works for KPMG, took a day off work to travel to Minneapolis to see the Wildcats lose to the University of Florida in the Elite 8. Asked by the newspaper if he was prepared to be in Indianapolis had Villanova made the Final Four, Cafferty responded, "Is that a question? That's a statement, right?" How would he manage more time from his job for the game, the newspaper asked. "I don't care. They can fire me if they want," he replied. Cafferty's buddy Sean Donovan, who graduated from Villanova in December with a math degree, has been winning notoriety for showing up to Wildcats games wearing an indigo bathrobe and painting his face blue and white. Since graduation, Donovan has been following his team to their games. He'll start job hunting in the next month or two. For now, says Cafferty of Donovan, "This is his job."

The incredible growing salary ... It's not your imagination: salaries for accounting graduates continue to take big leaps. The median salary for undergraduate accounting majors who graduate from the University of Minnesota increased from $41,200 in 2004 to $43,158 in 2005 - a spike of 4.8%. School officials predict the increase will be at least as much in 2006. Signing bonuses of $2,500 for undergrads with accounting majors are now routine, the Pioneer Press reports. Sam Grabarski, president of the Minneapolis downtown council, says he can tell how well Big Four firms are doing by the difficulty he has getting partners to attend meetings or return phone calls. "They're so busy keeping up with the growth of their business and recruiting professionals into their ranks that it's hard to recruit them into business organizations," he said.

The Big Four are criticizing new ethics rules in France as protectionist. They, along with Grant Thornton, tried to overturn a decree froin the Ministry of Justice that bars an accounting firm from auditing a company if it has provided advisory services to the client within the past two years. The code applies to advisory work done outside of France, The Times of London reports. "The Big Four are perceived as Anglo-Saxon, though most of their partners are French. There are a number of smaller French firms that don't have the international networks and feel they are losing out to the relentless march of the Big Four. They are hoping that the restrictions on the big firms will create opportunities for the French," an unidentified Big Four senior partner told the newspaper.