The Wall Street Journal-20080111-Willens Is Leaving Lehman To Set Up Tax Consultancy
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Willens Is Leaving Lehman To Set Up Tax Consultancy
Robert Willens, the widely quoted tax-accounting and tax-law analyst, is leaving Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. after 20 years to start an independent consulting firm for investors.
Mr. Willens said he would advise investors on the tax aspects of deals and prospective deals at his new firm, Robert Willens LLC.
The 61-year-old accountant, a managing director at Lehman, is known for his expertise on the various structures that companies use to cut their tax bills, generally in connection with mergers or other deals, such as spinoffs.
Mr. Willens's writings, which include widely distributed notes to clients, over the years have raised eyebrows among some corporate-tax advisers since his work essentially discloses the tax-avoidance strategies used by major companies -- presumably including some Lehman Brothers investment-banking clients who would rather not have such structures widely understood.
"Some bankers probably felt a little uncomfortable," said Mr. Willens, who spent 15 years at accounting firm Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co., a predecessor to KPMG LLP, before joining Lehman in 1987. For those reasons, he said he would sometimes tone down his writings, although he says he was never told by anyone at the investment bank to do so.
"Now there will be no restraint at all," he said.
Mr. Willens, also known for his dry wit as well as his mastery of baseball statistics, will continue to circulate his tax analyses in a new paid newsletter called "The Willens Report."
He will continue teaching at Columbia Business School in New York.
