Thomas Cook auditors raked in fees of £60m

aCCOUNTaNTs raked in nearly £ 60m in fees from Thomas Cook in the 12 years before the travel company collapsed last week.

as regulators launched an investigation into its last auditors at Ey, questions were being raised about fees shelled out to bean-counters charged with checking books during its recent stock market history.

Rachel Reeves MP, chairman of the Commons business, energy and industrial strategy committee, said: ‘The firms which audited Thomas Cook in the years leading up to its collapse clearly have questions to answer about what they were doing to sound the alarm about reportedly aggressive accounting practices, mounting debt and concerns about the underlying health of the business.’

The package holiday specialist had three auditors from 2007 – when it merged with rival My Travel – and its demise last week, when it went bust with £1.7bn of debt and a £3.1bn black hole in its balance sheet. during that period, Thomas Cook disclosed in its annual reports that it handed out fees to its auditors of £58.7m. The majority went to PwC, which audited the company for ten years.

Ey took over in 2017, and the accountancy regulator yesterday launched an investigation into its work for Thomas Cook’s accounts for the year to september 30, 2018. Ey said it would co-operate with the FRC’s investigation but said it ‘would be inappropriate to comment further at this time’.

It did not comment on the fees it received.

PwC, which declined to comment, last audited Thomas Cook’s accounts in 2016 when it said that the firm was a ‘going concern’.

deloitte was also listed as an auditor in 2007 but declined to comment last night.