PwC set to return as Sainsbury’s auditor

Experiences within the British press recommend grocery store big Sainsbury’s is about to re-appoint PwC as its auditor. The transfer would come a decade after the agency was changed within the function by Massive 4 rival EY.

Sainsbury’s is a British grocery store and the second largest chain of supermarkets within the UK, with a 14.6% share of UK grocery store gross sales as of September 2022. For a lot of years, the group had been audited by PwC – however that modified in 2014, because the accounting and advisory agency got here underneath scrutiny for its work at one other main grocery store.

PwC was underneath investigation by accounting watchdog the Monetary Reporting Council (FRC) for its involvement within the exterior audit of Tesco’s outcomes for 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14. As occasions unfolded, the audit committee of Sainsbury’s advisable to the board that it ought to change auditor, following a proper tender course of. This noticed the board announce its intention to the London Inventory Change to suggest the appointment of EY for the approaching monetary yr.

Now, simply shy of a decade later, PwC has been chosen to step again into that audit function. EY, which has been the corporate’s auditor since July 2015, will proceed within the function and can undertake the group audit for the years ending 2 March 2024 and 1 March 2025 – earlier than being changed by its Massive 4 rival for the yr ending 28 February 2026.

The contract is reportedly price £4 million, and comes as so-called ‘comply or clarify’ rules hit the UK’s auditing market. The brand new guidelines from the FRC imply {that a} board ought to “set up formal and clear insurance policies and procedures to make sure the independence and effectiveness of inside and exterior audit capabilities and fulfill itself on the integrity of monetary and narrative statements”.

Past auditing, PwC has additionally continued to work with Sainsbury’s over the past decade. Lately, for instance, the PwC web site elaborated on the way it had helped the grocery store to adjust to trendy slavery legal guidelines, by offering a digital device, taking “units of information from inside and outdoors Sainsbury’s Group” and utilizing PwC’s forensics radar device to “determine the place essentially the most important potential dangers in its enterprise and provide chains lie”.