The tenth annual audit fees survey

Thanks to Sarbanes-Oxley and emerging best practice, there
is now more uniformity in the way audit, audit-related and non-audit fees are
reported. This, our tenth
audit
fees survey, is published three months earlier than normal. Our audit fees
data comes courtesy of Manifest, the independent proxy governance and research
support organisation.

As a result, the classification system we use this year breaks with that of
our recent surveys, but better reflects the emerging consensus. Here’s some
highlights:

• FTSE-100 audit fees are up 14% to £3.7m on average; FTSE-250 audits now cost
  £692,000, up 5%.
• BDO is now the only non-Big Four firm to have audit clients in the FTSE-250.
  Brit Insurance dropped Mazars for E&Y, Group4-Securicor switched from Baker
  Tilly to KPMG, while iSoft dropped RSM Robson Rhodes – and right out of the
  FTSE- 250, too. BDO won Countrywide from KPMG, which also lost easyJet and
  Rathbone Brothers to PwC; Resolution went to E&Y.
• Not one FTSE-100 company changed auditors in the past year, apart from Royal
  Dutch Shell which dropped KPMG as its joint auditor.
• Overall, fees other than statutory audit are virtually unchanged in the
  FTSE-100 and down 2% in the FTSE-250.
• Audit sign-off times have slowed again, taking a day longer than last year,
  two days more than in 2004.

Click
here to download the 2006 audit fees survey.

For previous audit fees surveys, click on the relevent links below.

2005

2004

Manifest provides investors, advisers and quoted companies with
governance information and workflow tools. Independent and impartial, it has a
comprehensive governance and compensation database for UK and US equities.

www.manifest.co.uk