Wirecard chairman dismisses calls for independent audit
Wulf Matthias calls discussion of payment group’s accounting ‘an annoyance’
Olaf Storbeck in Frankfurt and Dan McCrum in London AN HOUR AGO
Wirecard’s chairman Wulf Matthias has dismissed calls for an independent forensic audit of the German fintech group’s accounts, at the end of a week which saw its market value drop by more than a fifth. Mr Matthias said the group’s accountants appeared to be acting properly. ”Prima facie, EY is evaluating the matters sufficiently,” Mr Matthias told the Financial Times. Wirecard has faced growing calls for an independent review of work by its auditor, EY, after the FT published documents on Tuesday that appeared to indicate a concerted effort to fraudulently inflate sales and profits. The company has categorically denied impropriety and said the conclusions drawn by the FT about the files were incorrect.
The 74-year-old –” a former senior banker at Credit Suisse in Germany and other lenders —” called the public discussion about Wirecard’s potential accounting issues “an annoyance”, adding that “we have endless stories [about Wirecard], three a day. I have not looked at them in further detail. We have other things to do.†Mr Matthias is due to step down as chairman of the supervisory board next year.
The comments came after Wirecard’s shares came under fresh pressure following an anonymous public letter to the group’s supervisory board members, warning them they could potentially face personal liability if they failed to investigate credible allegations of fraud.
The letter was posted Friday on a website, MCA Mathematik, which unidentified short sellers have used in recent months to publish analysis of Wirecard’s financial statements and management commentary.
The FT could not immediately reach the five other members of Wirecard’s supervisory board for comment.
Wirecard’s shares dropped 6.3 per cent on Friday, to €111.65, taking the fall for the week to 21 per cent, despite the company announcing a €200m share buyback.
EY has declined to comment on its work for Wirecard, citing client confidentiality. In a statement published on Wednesday, Wirecard said “Wirecard’s group auditor Ernst & Young GmbH, Germany, confirmed that they have complied and will comply with all statutory and professional audit standards.”
Wirecard faced scrutiny this year as an accounting scandal unfolded in Singapore, where white-collar crime investigators are probing alleged accounting fraud and forgery.
After initially denying FT reports that the head of its finance team in the region was suspected of cooking the books at subsidiaries in the region, Wirecard admitted that some employees may face criminal liability, and announced a dozen new compliance measures. The company has said there was no material impact on its financial statements, and EY signed off on the group’s accounts for 2018.
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