Accounting and Audit
Ventus VCT AGMs – A Disappointing Result, National Grid and Sports Direct
I have mentioned previously the attempt by a shareholder in the Ventus VCTs (VEN and VEN2) to start a revolution, i.e. replace all the directors and appoint new ones. See https://tinyurl.com/y6e5fafo . Nick Curtis was the leader of the revolt but at the AGMs on the 8th August the required resolutions were narrowly defeated with one exception. This was after the boards of these companies paid a proxy advisory service £38,000 to canvas shareholders, which of course shareholders will be paying ...
Burford – Illegal Market Manipulation?
Burford Capital (BUR) have issued an announcement that makes a number of allegations about the events surrounding the recent shorting attack on the company involving Muddy Waters. It includes:
Spoofing and layering to move the share price, e.g. putting in numerous share sales on the order book and cancelling them before they can be filled.
That includes numerous such transactions just before Muddy Waters issued a tweet giving Burford as the target, and as that tweet was delayed only Muddy Waters ...
Burford Capital, Goals Soccer Centres, Carillion, and Why Numbers Are Not Important
To follow on from my previous comments this morning on Burford Capital (BUR), this is a typical “shorting” attack where the shorter (Muddy Waters) and their supporters make a lot of allegations which investors are unable to verify in any useful time frame. I certainly questioned the accounting approach used by Burford and other litigation finance firms as I commented on it back in June, but disentangling the factual accusations in the Muddy Waters dossier from innuendo and comment is not ...
Market Crashes and Burford Capital
Investors might have been panicked by the recent market falls driven by the US/China trade wars, Brexit and gloomy economic forecasts. As usual, the UK market is led by the US markets. The S&P 500 is down 5% since the 26th July even though there was a slight bounce upwards yesterday. There can be few readers portfolios which have not suffered some impact because there were few stocks that did not fall.
Now I am an inveterate trend follower so how did ...
Renold Accounts, Audit Quality and Abnormal Price Movements
Chain maker Renold (RNO) has provided the latest example of sloppy accounting work. On the 9th July it reported that it had identified accounting issues in the three years ending March 2017, 2018 and 2019. Assets and profits were overstated and liabilities were understated in the Torque Transmission division. In total adjusted operating profits were overstated by £1.8 million. As a result the AGM is being postponed to give time for revising the Annual Accounts. Their auditors are Deloitte.
The Financial Reporting ...
Redcentric (RCN) Campaign: Important Developments
There have been important developments in our campaign regarding the accounting scandal at IT service group, Redcentric.
Firstly the FRC have moved at "lightning speed" (by their usually interminable standards), and published their findings in little more than two years after the matter was brought to their attention. And secondly there is news on the parallel FCA investigation in Redcentric's recently published annual results for 2018/19.
FRC Report
The FRC concluded that Redcentric's auditors, PwC, did not meet expected professional standards in their audits ...
Paying Illegal Dividends, Burford Capital, Woodford Patient Capital Trust and Zero Carbon Objective
A group of investors including Sarasin, Legal & General, Hermes and the UK Shareholders Association (UKSA) has written to Sir Donald Brydon who is undertaking a review of the audit market. They have yet again raised the question of whether the International Financial Accounting Standards (IFRS) are consistent with UK company law. In particular they question whether profits are sometimes being recognised, thus allowing the payment of illegal dividends. The particular issue is whether profits can arise on certain transactions under ...
Good News – Autonomy CFO Jailed
Good news – former CFO of public company jailed for fiddling the accounts. Oh to see that happen more often so as to deter manipulation of accounts that is so prevalent and so damaging to investors.
Sushovan Hussain, the former CFO of software company Autonomy, was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment by a US Court yesterday plus he was fined $4 million and ordered to forfeit $6.1 million he made from the sale of the company to Hewlett-Packard. He won’t even be ...
Warren Buffett and FCA Review of RDR & FAMR
There was an interesting article on the career of Warren Buffett in the last FT Weekend magazine. It was a wide-ranging interview with the renowned investor who became one of the richest persons in the world by making investments which consistently outperformed the markets over the last 50 years. At age 88 he still claims to be having fun by working at investment.
But in the last ten years he has fallen behind the S&P index. The reason is primarily because he ...
Horizon Discovery – Defective Accounting Discovered
Horizon Discovery Group (HZD) announced their full year results this morning. Horizon is a biotechnology company focused on cell engineering and CRISPR screening. Revenue was up by 68% to £58.7 million helped by an acquisition. But the “reported loss” increased to £35.8 million due to the exceptional write-off of past investment in “In Vivo”. Although this is a non-cash impairment it suggests that there was past over-optimism in the viability of that business unit and excessive capitalisation of development expenditure. This ...
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