Aurora Acquisition Corp (AURC)

[WhiteSahara]

Mr. Parkin has stated Top-Audit approached him with the Zabaikalgeoprom deal. Here is an older article that describes the attitude of Russian firms and their desire to meld with American/Canadian and European IPO's. It has several errors in text, which would appear to be because of the Russian origin. It certainly confirms Mr. Parkins discussion with me.

All IMHO

WWW.bdo.ru/eng/press/marketnews/arch/?form


26.04.2004 International auditor chains to introduce russian shares to western stock exchanges


On April 23, political council of world's largest auditor chain BDO International was held in Moscow. A few days earlier, representatives of another leading chain RSM International visited Russia too. Both chains ate going to broaden their business in Russia offering assistance to Russian companies in organization of IPOs abroad. However, it is impossible to do this without attack on positions of the "big four."

BDO International and RSM International have the first and the second places in the world among the auditor chains (without taking into account of the "big four"). In 2003, their revenue amounted to about $3 billion and $2 billion respectively. In Russia they are represented by BDO Unicon and RSM Top-Audit companies.

BDO Unicon will be the first Russian company that has passed registration of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said Andrei Dubisnky, head of the company and member of the board of the international chain of auditor and consulting companies BDO International. According to Dubinsky, the board decided to provide assistance to BDO Unicon in obtaining of registration from the SEC.

Political council of BDO International, the supreme governing body of this chain, was held in Moscow on April 23. This is the first such case in the history of not only Russian market but also emerging markets in general. To date, meetings of the political council were held only in developed countries of Europe and North America. General Director of BDO International Frans Samyn comments, "Organization of the meeting of the political council in Moscow is primarily explained by success of Russian economy. Now BDO considers Russia as one of the key directions for business development."

Dubinsky said, "The political council focused our attention primarily on development of IPOs, evaluation of readiness of Russian companies to them and the need to prepare regional procedures and mechanisms for attraction of investments for Russian companies. It was also proposed to coordinate efforts with BDO in assistance to the companies that transit to international accounting standards. In general, the matter is about serving of interests of Russian companies on the key stock marketplaces, first of all, in the US and in Europe."

Two days before, top managers of competing company RSM International visited Moscow too. These were director of the European division of RSM David Maxwell and Vice President of American RSM McGladrey Pat Tabor. They organized a conference dedicated to the similar topic and entitled "IPO in the US - are Russian companies ready for it?" It turned out that, according to representatives of RSM, many companies wish such IPOs but are not ready for them. That is why RSM Top-Audit was tasked to do the necessary preparations.

Pat Tabor announced, "Russian companies have big potential and good opportunities to enter the stock market of the US. But after introduction of new rules for audit of financial statements for listing companies this entrance will be difficult for them. A new law appeared quite recently and obliged auditors to present separate conclusions about condition of internal audit of a public company. According to preliminary estimates, the novelty will double the costs of annual audit and will have a significant impact on the size of expenditures on preparation for IPO." Yelena Loss, head of RSM Top-Audit, said, "A few dozens of our clients are considering IPOs but only two or three of them are ready for this. We will prepare them and also attract new clients using capabilities of RSM."

According to polled experts, visits of managers of BDO and RSM to Moscow are not incidental. First, April is the best season for signing of new auditing contracts. Second, auditor chains of the so-called second echelon decided to make the series of auditing scandals in the US and Europe related to companies of the "big four" beneficial or themselves. For this purpose they decided to "cheer up" their representatives on the national markets including Russia. Now BDO Unicon and RSM Top-Audit are tasked to attack at positions of the "big four" that controls 70% of the market in Russia.

Representatives of the "big four" are not inclined to dramatize the events. Partner of Deloitte David Peerson said, "We do not consider strengthening of presence of companies of other international auditor chains on the Russian market to be a threat of loss of existing or future clients of the company. We compete successfully against these companies both on the Russian and on the international market."