Auditor Departure Tracker
Every change of accounting firm disclosed to the SEC — and whether the company or the auditor ended it
Why an auditor leaving is worth watching
An auditor is the one outsider paid to argue with management about the numbers. When that relationship ends, the company has to say so within four business days, on an SEC filing called an 8-K Item 4.01. The filing is required to state whether there were any disagreements — and the language is nearly identical whether the split was mundane or serious.
The direction is what separates the two. Companies change auditors all the time to cut fees, to follow a partner, or because they outgrew a small firm. Those are dismissals, and they rarely mean anything. A resignation is the opposite: the firm is walking away from paid work, and it usually knows something the market does not yet. In January 2015 KPMG resigned as Advanced Emissions Solutions' auditor; the stock fell from roughly $19 to $9 in a single session.
Two more things are called out below: a disclosed disagreement, which is rare and means the auditor and management went on the record as not agreeing, and a downgrade to a materially smaller firm. Firm mergers are labelled and kept out of the alerts, because the company did not really change anything.