Unilever appoints audit firm KPMG as new auditor
Unilever has dropped audit firm PWC as its auditor and appointed KPMG as its replacement.
Unilever is a global multinational consumer goods company. Its products include foods, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. Unilever has more than 400 brands, 15 of which generate sales in excess of €1 billion a year. It is one of the world’s largest consumer goods company and currently operates in over 100 countries.
Following the audit of accounts for the year ending 31 December, the Big 4 firm KPMG will take over as auditor. This will all be subject to shareholder approval at next year’s AGM.
Another Big 4 firm EY could not bit for the audit tender as they have been a strategic supplier to Unilever for many years and the extent and nature of their services meant they were unable to bid.
PWC has reportedly earned an estimated £3m in non-audit work for Unilever. Unilever have thanked PWC for their audit work and now look forward to working with audit firm KPMG.
The last time Unilever put the audit work out to tender was 2002.
Earlier this year the Competition Commission said large listed companies must rotate their auditor every ten years amid concerns of a lack of competition in the market, which is dominated by the Big Four firms. Read more about this in our previous blog “Firms react positively to CC ten-year tender plan”
However, financial watchdog the FRC’s proposals of a “comply or explain” model, has been argued by the profession as a better model than the Commission’s mandatory framework.
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