CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS’ AGM ON FRIDAY 17 MAY AT 2:30 PM TO VOTE ON THE AMENDMENTS TO THE BYE-LAWS RESOLUTIONS 2 and 3 TO GIVE EFFECT TO THE MERGER BETWEEN THE CAI AND CPA. THE ONLINE VOTING ON THE MERGER CLOSES ON FRIDAY 10 MAY AT 2:30 PM WHICH IS ACCESSED ON THE EMAIL SENT TO THE CAI MEMBERS ON 24 APRIL.
1 The CAI has approximately 32,899 members worldwide, there are 22,.674 members in Ireland with 6,929 in practice and 12,772 in Business. The CPA have 4,772 members worldwide with 4,025 in Ireland with 1,158 in practice and 2,072 in Business. The CAI has the largest membership of accountants in Ireland with a 51% share and they don’t need to merge with a much smaller group of 4,025 members in Ireland.
2. The CPA offices at 17 Harcourt Street, Dublin 2 may not sell for some time as there are a lot of offices in that area for sale and there will be a substantial loss on the sale and the CAI members will have to fund around €3 million of the loss as there is around €4 million of a Bank loan on the offices. The CPA have incurred losses in their most recently published financial statements. If the merger goes ahead it will cost CAI members dearly as there could be serious liabilities that they could be taking on and the staff in the CPA will have to be made redundant or employed by the CAI adding to the very large staff numbers already in the CAI.
3.The CPA members can use both CPA and ACA and they can use both FCPA and FCA which isn’t acceptable to the CAI members as it appears that CPA/FCPA have more qualifications than the CAI members.
4. The CPA have 263 audit practice firms in Ireland with the CAI having 467 audit practice firms so there will be a lot of competition among small and medium sized practice firms for audits trading as Chartered Accountants audit practice firms. There are 1,947 CAI practice firms in Ireland and there are 613 CPA practice firms in Ireland which will lead be intense competition for clients as CPA firms can trade as Chartered Accountant firms if the merger proceeds.
5. The ICAEW refused to merge with any other groups of accountants, it has 166,000 members for a population of over 60 million people, if the CAI merger proceeds with the CPA there will be around 38,000 members for a 7 million population which is far too many CAI members for a small population of 7 million people
6. All members received an email on 24 April headed AGM 2024 with no mention of voting to give effect to the CAI and CPA merger which is not acceptable and it sets out the details of the AGM on 17 May and the details of the voting and there are nine resolutions to vote on, and please vote against Resolution 2 and 3 so as the Principal Bye- Laws and Disciplinary Bye-Laws cannot be amended to give effect to the merger of the CAI and the closing date for voting is 10 MAY 2:30PM
7. All the above data can be got from the IAASA Profile of Accountants for 2023 that was issued on 24 April, you can check out the IAASA website on iaasa.ie
8. It is clear from the above that if the CAI members vote to amend the BYE-LAWS and the DISCIPLINARY BYE-LAWS to give effect to the merger the CAI members will be like turkeys voting for Christmas