TCI calls on Wirecard to remove chief executive Markus Braun
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The Children’s Investment fund has called on Wirecard’s supervisory board to remove chief executive Markus Braun after a KPMG audit was unable to verify its revenue.
It piles further pressure on Wirecard chairman Thomas Eichelmann after KPMG said was unable to obtain all the information it requested from the firm, such as bank statements.
In a letter to Wirecard’s chairman, fund manager Sir Chris Hohn said the audit “raises questions as to how investors, lenders and regulators can be confident that Wirecard’s current and historic accounting is accurate.”
Wirecard hired KPMG last October to conduct an independent audit, in a bid to address claims its finance team had tried to inflate its reported sales and profits. Shares in the firm plunged 26 per cent when it published the results of KPMG’s audit yesterday.
The firm said no incriminating evidence for the allegations of balance sheet forgery had been identified. It added that with respect to all four areas of the audit, no significant findings have been made which would require an adjustment to the annual accounts between 2016 and 2018.
TCI, which has sold short one per cent of Wirecard’s stock, has asked why the supervisory board did not intervene “when it became clear that the audit could not be properly completed”. It added that “it is clearly now necessary for the supervisory board to take direct responsibility for the investigation immediately”.
“We are of the view that the supervisory is legally obliged to intervene. In our opinion, the necessary intervention is now to remove the chief executive from all management duties,” the fund said.
Hohn added that if Wirecard does not remove Braun they must take responsibility for the investigation and remove management from all involvement in the audit until it has been completed. “Otherwise, the supervisory board commits a breach of duty of care”.
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