Shout out to my former employer Deloitte on extending its lead as the biggest Big Four accounting firm. Deloitte’s annual revenue increased 15% to $65 billion this past year but it may struggle to maintain this growth with a shortage of accountants in the US leading the profession to consider lowering education requirements ($). In my experience, dealing with numbers is the easy part, the hard part is dealing with the boredom. Entrance exams should not test accounting skills, they should test how long you can sit in a chair and stare at a white wall without quitting. If you can handle that sort of dullness for 12 hours a day, then I’m sorry but you might just have what it takes to be an accountant.

The lowdown

• 📈 Deloitte’s annual revenue increases 15% to $65 billion for the year to 31 May 2023.

• 📉 China’s exports fall by 8.8%, the fourth month in a row they have decreased.

• ❌ Goldman Sachs is planning another round of job cuts, targeting underperformers.

Featured story

Carlyle weighs up sale of RuneScape developer Jagex

I look forward to the day we have some good news for the LSE but it is not this day. PE group Carlyle is considering a sale of UK video game developer Jagex ($), potentially valued at over £1 billion. Jagex is known for the RuneScape franchise. Before the sale was announced, Jagex was viewed as a contender for a UK IPO.

Jagex has had many owners since its founding in 2001. It was bought by Carlyle two years ago (the FT says the price was undisclosed, Reuters says $530 million) and before that, asset manager Macarthur Fortune Holding purchased Jagex for $530 million in 2020 from Shanghai Hongtou Network Technology.

Jagex's 2021 annual revenues were £125 million, a 4% increase from the previous year, but profit declined slightly to £37 million due to one-time costs associated with the company's sale. Of course, the costs aren’t so “one time” when the company is sold every second year.

The content we're consuming today

• The Economist: Wall Street is racing to manage your wealth. That is a good thing ($).

• FT: No other investor has a life story quite as unbelievable as Li Lu ($).

• The Fin: The real story behind Qantas’ rapid descent – and what’s next.

Off-balance sheet items

• Tom Hardy stars in the new movie The Bikeriders which looks pretty cool based on the trailer and received a 92% on Rotten Tomatoes (which is apparently the most overrated metric in Hollywood ($).

The bottom line