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Fraud allegations: Grenke commissions special audit at KPMG

2020-09-18T16:38:03.752Z


The Wirecard hunter Fraser Perring accuses the leasing company Grenke of fraud. The rejects the allegations - and has now commissioned the auditors from KPMG with a special report.


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Grenke premises in Baden-Baden: "Our goal is 100 percent clarification"

Photo: Uli Deck / dpa

The leasing company Grenke wants to get rid of the massive allegations of the British investor Fraser Perring with a special audit.

The supervisory board around the former Dresdner Bank board member Ernst-Moritz Lipp had commissioned the auditing company KPMG with a special report, said Antje Leminsky, chief executive officer.

Leminsky justified the choice of KPMG, which has also been regularly checking the MDax Group's balance sheet for three years, by stating that the report should be available quickly.

The management will also discuss an additional neutral review.

Perring, who is betting on a decline in the price of Grenke shares by selling short, accuses the company of fraud, balance sheet falsification and money laundering in a 64-page report, as SPIEGEL reported on Tuesday.

Since that day, the company's shares have lost around 40 percent of their value.

The company had rejected the allegations from the outset against SPIEGEL.

"Our goal is 100 percent clarification," said Grenke boss Leminsky.

"A lot of porcelain has been smashed here for no reason and trust has been lost. We want this trust back."

The investor's allegations were unfounded.

Already on Tuesday, after Perring made the allegations public through his analysis company Viceroy, Grenke switched on the supervisory authorities Bafin and Bundesbank.

Grenke is against any comparisons with Wirecard and has nothing to hide, said Leminsky: "We are respectable merchants."

Perring made similar allegations in 2016 against the payment service provider Wirecard, which has since collapsed.

In June, the then Dax Konzen had to file for bankruptcy after accounting forgery on a large scale by auditors - including KPMG - was uncovered.

The British investor also excelled in uncovering balance sheet fraud at the Steinhoff furniture company.

The short-selling attack against ProSiebenSat.1, however, fizzled out.

Grenke earns his living mainly by lending IT and other technology products to small and medium-sized companies, as well as with related services.

One of Perring's core allegations relates to Grenke's practice of building new regions with franchisees and buying the new companies from them after a few years.

The investor is bothered by the fact that company founder Wolfgang Grenke has had a stake in CTP since the beginning of 2020, which is buying up these companies.

Wolfgang Grenke did not have any personal financial advantages and was not involved in talks that led to the acquisition, said board member Sebastian Hirsch.

Perring's statement that the young companies contributed little to the result is also wrong.

Grenke has paid around one hundred million euros for the takeovers since 2011, and in 2019 they contributed a profit of 112 million euros.

The company founded in 1978 wants to take legal action against Perring.

A damage to the image has already occurred: The rating agency S&P is checking the credit rating of Grenke ("BBB +") for a downgrade.

Major investor Union Investment is also taking a close look at the processes.

The fund company announced that contact was made with the company.

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fdi / Reuters

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2020-09-18

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