PwC’s S.Korean member to focus on SE Asia acquisition deals

Samil PricewaterhouseCoopers, the South Korean member firm of global accounting industry leader PwC, aims to focus on overseas acquisition deals of the country’s companies, especially in Southeast Asia, its chief executive said on Thursday.

Yoon Hoonsoo, who was reappointed Thursday as Samil PwC's CEO, said the country’s top accounting firm plans to actively support business expansions of local companies, such as financial firms, into other nations.

“We are set to concentrate on advice services for M&A deals in Southeast Asia, especially,” Yoon told The Korea Economic Daily in an interview. “We will actively utilize the membership of Samil’s partner firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in the process.”

Samil PwC’s Southeast Asian deal center with more than 600 merger and acquisition experts became the firm’s key core unit, providing services for the most M&A agreements in the region from 2019 to 2021, he said.

Yoon, who took office in 2020, is scheduled to serve his second term from July 1 for four years. He has been known for maintaining Samil PwC’s top position in the domestic audit market and growing other sectors such as consulting for acquisition deals.

DIGITALIZATION

Samil PwC is also focusing on the digitalization of simple tasks to improve audit quality and stability, Yoon said.

The firm plans to use artificial intelligence and other technology for easy and repetitive work while allowing accountants to handle complicated jobs such as analyses.

“We target achievements by significantly raising investments in digital transformation,” Yoon said. “We also aim to develop automation solutions for new profit sources.”

Samil already introduced a robotic platform that improves accounting audit efficiency and plans to unveil an automation solution in the first half, which detects abnormalities in fund flows.

“We will provide those solutions to smaller accounting firms as well as small and medium-sized enterprises lacking accounting personnel through subscription services,” Yoon said.

NO UNFAIR SERVICE FEE HIKES

Samil PwC will refrain from “unfairly” raising audit service fees by abusing the country’s regulations, Yoon said.

South Korea has been preventing collusion between companies and accounting firms to improve accounting transparency through a new act on external audits since 2018. The government introduced a periodic auditor designation system and a standard auditing hours rule.

The regulation, however, ramped up auditing costs for listed companies.

Yoon said the authorities need to take measures against such side effects although the country needs tougher regulations.

“It was necessary to introduce some extreme steps for a change in the audit environment,” he said. “But they need to reduce the types of designations by the authorities and minimize the number of companies subject to them to resolve side effects such as excessive auditing costs.”

Write to Dong-Hun Lee and Han-Gyeol Seon at leedh@hankyung.com
 

Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.