Ok, so he didn't actually say that, but Donald Nicolaisen is stepping down.

Via Reuters:

US SEC chief accountant to quit as top ranks thin

By Kevin Drawbaugh
September 7, 2005
Reuters

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Wednesday that Chief Accountant Donald Nicolaisen will resign next month, further depleting the top ranks of the agency that got a new chairman in August. After two years on the job, Nicolaisen, 61, said he plans to return to the private sector. Before joining the investor protection agency, he was a senior partner at Big Four accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. "I'm pleased that he has agreed to remain at the SEC long enough to help the agency search for a successor," said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox in a statement.

The SEC already had vacancies to head two of its four major divisions. One key job -- director of the investment management division that regulates mutual funds -- has been empty since February, when Paul Roye stepped down. The market regulation division, which oversees exchanges, has not had a permanent director since July, when Annette Nazareth was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as an SEC commissioner.

In addition, several senior enforcement staffers have quit since the White House named Cox, a former California congressman, in June to become the next SEC chairman. "It's not unusual when a new chairman comes for there to be a number of vacancies at the top," said Howard Kramer, a partner at the law firm of Schiff Hardin and a former SEC staffer. "Usually the vacancies don't last that long, and I'm sure they'll get filled in due course," Kramer said. An SEC spokesman declined to comment beyond Cox's statement.

Nicolaisen, 61, was brought into the agency by former Chairman William Donaldson, who resigned on June 30 after a little over two years on the job. The two came to the SEC after the turbulent tenure of former Chairman Harvey Pitt and his chief accountant, Robert Herdman, who resigned amid controversy over the way they handled the creation of a new accounting oversight board.

During his tenure, Nicolaisen played key roles in the debate over a new rule forcing U.S. companies to treat stock options as a business expense and in implementing controversial post-Enron Sarbanes-Oxley accounting reforms. He also announced last December that the SEC had determined Fannie Mae misapplied accounting principles and should restate its financial results, a finding that rocked the housing finance giant.

The original article appears here.

-- MDT

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