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PwC Loses Biggest China Client as Evergrande Probe Bites

Bank of China joins at least another 50 Chinese firms who have either dropped PwC or cancelled plans to hire the firm


The logo of PriceWaterhouseCoopers is seen at its office in Berlin. Photo: Reuters.

 

Auditing giant PwC was counting the cost again of the probe into its work on troubled property developer China Evergrande Group after it lost its largest mainland China-listed client, the Bank of China.

State-owned Bank of China had only in March stated plans to reappoint PwC as its auditor for 2024 but in a filing late on Monday said it now plans to appoint EY. The decision will be submitted for shareholder approval, it said.

Bank of China paid PwC $27 million in auditing fees last year, filings show. That’s more than the combined auditing fees from its three next biggest domestically listed clients for 2023 – China Life Insurance, China Telecom and insurance giant PICC. The trio have also dropped PwC as a client, according to filings.

At least 50 Chinese firms, many of which are state-owned enterprises or financial institutions, have either dropped PwC as their auditor or cancelled plans to hire the firm in recent months, a Reuters examination of filings shows.

As of March, PwC was the auditor for about 110 companies listed in mainland China, according to the company’s website.

 

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Chinese authorities have been looking at PwC’s audits of Evergrande which has been accused by the securities regulator of a $78 billion fraud – an investigation that is expected to result in heavy fines. PwC audited Evergrande for almost 14 years until early 2023.

Since at least April, regulators have asked several large state-owned clients of PwC to drop the auditor, sources have said.

They have also advised that state-owned firms and listed companies should be “extremely cautious” about hiring auditors that have received regulatory fines or other penalties in the past three years.

About half of the corporate clients that have dropped PwC have been snapped up by EY and KPMG, the Reuters examination of filings shows.

PwC has been BOC’s auditor since 2021. Prior to that, EY audited BOC for eight years. Chinese rules stipulate that state-owned firms should not employ the same auditor for more than eight consecutive years.

 

  • Reuters with additional editing by Sean O’Meara

 

Read more:

Chinese Regulators ‘Telling State Entities to Dump PwC as Auditor’

PwC Slashing China Partners’ Pay By 50% Amid Evergrande Fallout

PwC Slashes Financial Audit Staff in China After Clients’ Mass Exit

Evergrande Liquidators ‘Probing PwC, Others to Recoup Losses’

PwC Probed For ‘Enabling Evergrande Misconduct For Years’

 

Sean O'Meara

Sean O'Meara is an Editor at Asia Financial. He has been a newspaper man for more than 30 years, working at local, regional and national titles in the UK as a writer, sub-editor, page designer and print editor. A football, cricket and rugby fan, he has a particular interest in sports finance.