Pair quit troubled KPMG

TWO partners have quit tainted KPMG amid a string of scandals over the behaviour of senior managers.

Mike Walters and Harps Sidhu will leave the accountant at the end of the month.

Their boss Tim Howarth was forced out as head of KPMG’s financial services consulting arm following a misconduct probe which focused on messages he sent over mobile phone service WhatsApp.

Walters and Sidhu’s decision to leave could throw the division into chaos by depriving it of a string of top figures in one go. One insider told the Financial Times the financial services consulting unit has turned into ‘a bit of a disaster zone’.

Another said: ‘It is not a happy place to work at the moment.’

Financial services is an ultra-profitable area for KPMG, which earned UK revenues of £681m last year from consulting and audit work for the industry.

It is the latest blow to hit the business and comes after Sanjay Thakkar, head of its deals unit, went on leave in June following the resignation of two female partners in protest at the company’s handling of bullying allegations.

And in January this year, Peter Meehan – who oversaw KPMG’s audits of failed outsourcer Carillion – was suspended after claims the accountant had missed a string of warning signs.

KPMG has also been repeatedly fined for incompetence, including a £5m penalty in May for missing a black hole at the Co-op Bank and another £3.5m last month for mistakes at investment firm BNY Mellon.