EY writing and editing tests

Please complete the following three tests in 90 minutes.

SECTION 1
Writing

Assignment A

Please rewrite the following passage in good, clear English. The purpose is to highlight the
construction-industry expertise of Allied Accountants, an Egyptian firm, in its corporate brochure.

Please do whatever you feel is necessary to make the text read well, and please use American
spelling.

Allied Accountants

Construction
The government of Egypt is undergoing a large scale reconstruction program engaging primarily
European contractors of the private sector and for certain of the specialised fields with the assistance
of the United States of America, United Kingdom and France to upgrade its existing electric power
stations, sewerage and water systems, Olympic stadiums, sea ports and high dams on the Nile.

These projects are undertaken mainly by joint venture, between companies of those countries and
Egyptian contractors. We, as Allied Accountants, are requested by our clients, either Egyptian or
foreign, to register a joint venture, an Egyptian company or establish a branch of the foreign entity in
Egypt as the legal entity which enters into the joint venture.

In addition we assist the client in installing a suitable accounting system in the circumstances either
manual or computerised depending on the size and complexity of the transactions involved.
Assignment B

Write a short article for our internal online newsletter (max. 300 words) based on the information
below.

Please note:

 Your target audience is 7,000 EY people in the Central and Southeast Europe (CSE) Region.
 For the purposes of this test, Molslavia is a CSE country and is in the EU.
 Names and numbers have been changed to protect the privacy of EY employees and our
client. Nevertheless, the information in this document should be used only for the purposes of
this test, and must not be distributed to people outside EY
 EMEIA = Europe Middle East India and Africa Area
 There are spelling/grammar mistakes in the input (the contributors are not native-English
speakers). The final article should not contain such mistakes.
 The article should NOT be in the form of questions and answers.
 You should write with American spelling.
 This is an open test, and you can do any research necessary to help you write the article.

***
Input:

Hi!

Yesterday it was announced that our proposal for Molslavia Statistics for working out methodology
for registry based population census was declared successful. We would like to share this win in the
CSE news early next week.

I have had the engagement leader answer the questions below. Pls use this input for the article.

Regards,

Stanislav

1. This is a Government & Public Sector client, right?

Yes, the client is Statistics Molslavia, a government agency at the area of administration of the
Ministry of Finance

2. How did we win this client? What was the key to our success? (good relationships, already a
client, won tender, etc?)
We cooperated with population census experts and other specialists and combined a multidisciplanry
team adding our advisory competencies - project management, analytical recouces etc. We have also
earlier experience and good relationship with the client.

3. Please describe cross-border or cross-service line teaming.

The team is local from Advisory department. Mostly Performance Improvement team members will
be involved, also our IT specialists will support in analysing governmental registries.

4. Was there anything about our approach that might prove useful to other teams in bid
situations?
We encourage to involve the best subject matter experts available and team up with them. While EY
has good project management and coordination capabilities, we will never be experts in all specific
areas.
5. Why is this win important for CSE/EMEIA?
During the project we will obtain understanding about the most of governmental registries that will be
analysed during the project and this gives further opportunities. Also the registry based population
census will be more popular everywere and possibly we can reuse our experience in other of CSE
countries.

6. What will our work involve?

EY will be a coordinator of the project and provide analysts for analysing most of governmental
registries. The project objective is to work out the methodology for registry based population census.
A lot of theoretical work - working out demographic specific methods will be carried out by our
external partners (Molslavia Institute of Demographics, lawer and some more foregin experts). EY
will participate in analysing governmental registries in other to find out whether the data is usable for
population census.

7. What are the expected fees for this project?

The total fees are 400 k EUR. Our proportion is about 220 k EUR. It will be financed from EU funds.
SECTION 2
Copy editing

Assignment C

Please mark up your corrections, changes and any comments (including any questions for the writer)
on the text below, which is to be included in a newsletter distributed to members of EY’s financial
services team. Please use American spelling.

The insurance industry in India

The emerging markets have been a roller coaster ride for many investors, but India has retained it’s

place as one of the more significant – and attractive – investment opportunities for european financial

institutions. This parly reflects the economic liberalization of the past five years, but the shear size of

the market, Indias regional dominance, and forecasted GDP growth of 6-8% per annum over the next

five years has insured its position amongst potential investors. Two partners from the Indian financial

markets practice, which is based in Bombay, looked at movements in the fast growing retail sector.

Insuring the future

India’s insurance sector has been around since 1850, and all existing life companies were nationalized

in 1956 under a single entity, the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC); this nationalization was

extended to general insurers in 1973 and a holding company, the general Insurance Corporation of

India (GIC), established. In line with many nationalized companies the industry is ripe for re-

engineering to correct the high cost of operations and low return on investment and to enhance

customer service. Market penetration is also surprisingly weak, with only 66m policy holders out of a

population of over 900m.

Bobby Demish, partner in Bombay, points out that the long term potential in this area is notable.

“There is basically an insurable population of over 200 people, in a country with traditionaly high

saving rates. There are a number of clearly underdeveloped market sectors, and considerable demand

for tailor made products to meet the needs of the countrys burgeoning middle classes. The

government has made a comitment in principal to privatise the industry, following on from the
recommendation of the Malhotra Committee in 1993. But this remains politically sensitive,

especially given the size of the industry workforce (over 1m people, directly and indirectly). The

government has established a regulator, the IRA, but industry regulation as a whole will need an

overhaul before privatization can take place.”

Fund management comes of age

Fund management, like insurance, was government monopoly until 1992, when private players where

allowed to establish domestic mutual funds in competition with the Unit Trust of India, nationalized

banks with insurance companies. Since then, a number of funds have been set up in colaboration with

international managers including Kleinwort Benson and JP Morgan, and a few international players

including Morgan Stanley and Jardine Fleming have established majority owned fund management

operations.

The industry is regulated by India’s Securities and Exchange Board of India. It’s guidelines are

currently under review in areas such as:

 NAV calculations to introduce some degree of reporting consistency and allow performance

comparisons;

 Borrowing funds to meet redemption requirements, subject to certain limits;

 Listing and repurchase of units, and

 minimum net worth requirements, which are proposed to double from the existing level of

US$1.6 million.

Most closed-ended funds are presently trading at discounts to NAV, some quite significant, and the

proposed revisions should address some of the underlying causes. It is believed that retail investors

became disenchanted with foreign fund mangers after Morgan Stanley raised around US$ 30m for its

first equity fund, which is trading at a discount to NAV over two years after its launch. Indeed, retail

investors have historically equated mutual fund investments with those in primary market equity new

issues, where substantial appreciation shortly after issue was not uncommon.
The exception gap is closing with the failure of some new equity issues, but it’s generally felt that

mutual funds must educate buyers on investment principals, and what constitutes reasonable

performance expectations. Templeton, which is shortly launching it’s first fund, is conducting an

extensive educational ad campaign in this area.

Bobbie remains optimistic. “There is no doubt that things will be tough for the next 2 to 3 years, after

which the potential is enormous. Key success factors are going to be managing investor perception

which is an overall industry issue, best practises in distribution and investor servicing, and the

development of domestic fund management skills.

“A number of international fund mangers are actively reviewing opportunities in India. These include

a number of European insurers, which are considering entering the local fund management industry.

This will turn on the liberalization of insurance regulations to licence the entry of foreign insurance

companies into India.”

- ends -

Corrected Paragraph
The Insurance industry in India

The emerging markets have been a roller coaster ride for many investors, but India has retained its
place as one of the more significant – and attractive – investment opportunities for European financial
institutions. This party reflects the economic liberalization of the past five years, but the sheer size of
the market, India regional dominance, and forecasted GDP growth of 6-8% per annum over the next
five years has insured its position amongst potential investors. Two partners from the Indian financial
markets practice, which is based in Bombay, looked at movements in the fast-growing retail sector.
Insuring the future

India’s insurance sector has been around since 1850, and all existing life companies were nationalized
in 1956 under a single entity, the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC); this nationalization was
extended to general insurers in 1973 and a holding company, the general Insurance Corporation of
India (GIC), established. In line with many nationalized companies the industry is ripe for re-
engineering to correct the high cost of operations and low return on investment and to enhance
customer service. Market penetration is also surprisingly weak, with only 66m policy holders out of a
population of over 900m.

Bobby Demish, partner in Bombay, points out that the long-term potential in this area is notable.
“There is basically an insurable population of over 200 people, in a country with traditionally high
saving rates. There are a number of clearly underdeveloped market sectors, and considerable demand
for tailor made products to meet the needs of the country's burgeoning middle classes. The
government has made a commitment in principle to privatise the industry, following on from the
recommendation of the Malhotra Committee in 1993. But this remains politically sensitive, especially
given the size of the industry workforce (over 1m people, directly and indirectly). The government
has established a regulator, the IRA, but industry regulation will need an overhaul before privatization
can take place.”
Fund management comes of age.

Fund management, like insurance, was government monopoly until 1992, when private players could
establish domestic mutual funds in competition with the Unit Trust of India, nationalized banks with
insurance companies. Since then, several funds have been set up in collaboration with international
managers including Kleinwort Benson and JP Morgan, and a few international players including
Morgan Stanley and Jardine Fleming have established majority owned fund management operations.

The industry is regulated by India’s Securities and Exchange Board of India. Its guidelines are
currently under review in areas such as:
• NAV calculations to introduce some degree of reporting consistency and allow performance
comparisons;
• Borrowing funds to meet redemption requirements, subject to certain limits;
• Listing and repurchase of units, and
• minimum net worth requirements, which are proposed to double from the existing level of US$1.6
million.

Most closed-ended funds are presently trading at discounts to NAV, some quite significant, and the
proposed revisions should address some of the underlying causes. It is believed that retail investors
became disenchanted with foreign fund managers after Morgan Stanley raised around US$ 30m for its
first equity fund, which is trading at a discount to NAV over two years after its launch. Indeed, retail
investors have historically equated mutual fund investments with those in primary market equity new
issues, where substantial appreciation shortly after issue was not uncommon.

The exception gap is closing with the failure of some new equity issues, but it’s generally felt that
mutual funds must educate buyers on investment principals and what constitutes reasonable
performance expectations. Templeton, which is shortly launching its first fund, is conducting an
extensive educational ad campaign in this area.

Bobbie remains optimistic. “There is no doubt that things will be tough for the next 2 to 3 years, after
which the potential is enormous. Key success factors are going to be managing investor perception
which is an overall industry issue, best practises in distribution and investor servicing, and the
development of domestic fund management skills.

“A number of international fund managers are actively reviewing opportunities in India. These
include a few European insurers, which are considering entering the local fund management industry.
This will turn on the liberalization of insurance regulations to licence the entry of foreign insurance
companies into India.”