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Press watch: Demise of RSM Tenon

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‘Debt-laden accountant RSM Tenon has wiped out its shareholders, and left Lloyds Banking Group facing chunky losses on its £80.4m debt, after being rescued by rival accountancy Baker Tilly via a pre-pack administration,’ according to The Daily Telegraph (22 August). The newspaper reported that Baker Tilly had made an ‘unsolicited’ bid approach to the troubled RSM Tenon last month ‘but in a piece of brinkmanship, Baker Tilly hastened the collapse of RSM Tenon by pulling out of the bid talks and forcing its target into administration’.

‘In a pre-pack deal, overseen by administrators Deloitte, Baker Tilly then snapped up RSM Tenon’s main “trading entities”, ensuring that about 2,300 of RSM Tenon’s staff retained their jobs at the accountant’s 35 offices,’ the newspaper reported.

According to the Financial Times, the firm’s undoing was ‘partly down to its purchase of RSM Bentley Jennison and certain assets from Vantis in 2009 and 2010’.

The Telegraph suggested that RSM Tenon ‘never recovered from January 2012’s accounting mishap when it overstated its own accounts’. The firm, which has since lost about 10,000 of the 50,000 customers it once had – partly due to business disposals – said the accounting blunder had come to light after the arrival of a new chief financial officer.

Issue: 1182
Categories: News
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