Progress Report 1
Company Background
A. What is the ticker symbol of your company? GPC (Genuine Parts Company).
Identify the stock exchange where your company stock trades? GPC is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). There are currently 159.44 million shares of GPC being sold on the NYSE.
B. Read the auditor’s report included in the annual report of the company and explain its purpose. Identify the name of the auditing firm. Ernst & Young L.L.P. is the auditing firm who prepared the annual report. Ernst & Young L.L.P. is the United State’s arm of Ernst & Young Global, one of the Big Four accounting firms, which includes rivals PricewaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. Ernst & Young provides assurance, tax, transactions, and advisory services to public and private companies in a wide variety of industries from about 100 offices throughout the United States. Ernst & Young L.L.P. is part of the Americas division of the global accountancy network. Arthur Young and Alwin C. Ernst founded the two accounting firms that were later combined to form Ernst & Young.
Ernst & Young L.L.P. audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States), the consolidated balance sheets of Genuine Parts Company as of December 31, 2007 and 2006, and the related consolidated statements of income, shareholders’ equity, and cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2007 of Genuine Parts Company and our report dated February 26, 2008 expressed an unqualified opinion thereon. According to the audit by Ernst & Young, Genuine Parts Company maintained, in all material an effective internal control ove ...