Delayed merger

Meanwhile, the rumbling and discord over the grand alliance between PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and RSMama (RSM) has led to a postponement of the effective merger date to April 15. Both sides continue to work furiously to salvage the deal. We learn that Ketan Dalal of RSMama has been invited to the Partnership Oversight Board and there is also talk of PWC guaranteeing the income of RSM for three years — obviously this is not well received by PwC people. Moreover, Deepak Kapoor did not get the requisite consensus to be appointed managing director at Friday’s board meeting chaired by Rathin Datta at Kolkata. The election of partners scheduled for April 27 is now likely to be hotly contested. If all this were not bad enough, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) — a sleepy club when it comes to disciplining its members — has finally turned hyperactive in the Global Trust Bank (now merged) case. It has apparently hit PwC with show cause notices running into hundreds of pages seeking the names of partners responsible for the bank audit.