KPMG’s business in the United Arab Emirates has been split by infighting, with the chief executive surviving an attempted coup after two senior partners raised governance concerns and were subsequently fired.
The accounting group’s Lower Gulf business was pitched into turmoil last week as a group of partners planned a secret ballot to determine whether Nader Haffar, KPMG’s CEO in the region since 2018, had lost their support, according to current and former insiders.
Haffar would have faced removal if three-quarters of the firm’s 60 partners had said they had lost confidence in him, the insiders said.
However, momentum for the uprising had stalled on Friday and the vote was called off, according to one of the people. “It looks like Nader has survived for now,” the person said.
The two senior partners who lost their jobs over the past month sat on KPMG Lower Gulf’s executive committee. Insiders said they had…
