Icon: enlarge
Lack of perspective: For
more than a decade, the troops of EY Germany boss
Hubert Barth
checked the
Wirecard books.
They only sounded the alarm when shareholders and creditors had already lost billions.
Photo: Michael Proeck for EY
Since Michael Jaffé (57) dismantled the realm of the film dealer Leo Kirch into its individual parts, he has been considered a grand master of his field.
Now the specialist lawyer for tax and insolvency law is dedicating himself to the German grandmasters of advanced balance sheet fraud - and as a kind of by-product, drives the EY auditors from one embarrassment to the next.
On August 20, Jaffé deposited his version of the rise and fall of the supposed miracle company Wirecard at the Munich District Court as a bankruptcy administrator.
The 360-page insolvency report can also be read as an indictment against EY, which Wirecards had approved for years, increasingly fictional balance sheets.
Icon: enlarge
Master of his trade:
Michael Jaffé
once dismantled
the Kirch group.
Today he takes care of the remains of Wirecard.
He gave the EY auditors a devastating testimony.
Photo: imago images
In the slightly more than five years between the end of 2014 and the beginning of April 2020 alone, Jaffé's paper showed operating losses of around 750 million euros instead of the 1.9 billion euros in profit audited in the balance sheets.
Instead of company assets of 5.9 billion, Jaffé's people only found valuable positions of 428 million euros.
And the cash reserves shrank from 3.3 billion euros in the most recently published quarterly report to a meager 27 million euros - with a debt level of 3.2 billion euros.
Continue reading with
Understand economy.
Achieve more.
Exclusive insider stories, trends and backgrounds.
Your advantages with manager magazin +
Icon: Check
All articles on manager-magazin.de
Exclusive research by the editorial team and the best of "The Economist"
Icon: Check
Read the manager magazine
as an app and e-paper - on all your devices
Icon: Check
Try one month for free
Cancel anytime online
All articles in the manager app
for only € 24.99 per month
One month for € 0.00
Try now for 0.00 € Buy nowArrow to the right
Already have a digital subscription? Register here
Restore iTunes subscription
manager + is processed via your iTunes account and paid for with a purchase confirmation.
24 hours before it expires, the subscription is automatically renewed for one month at the current price of € 24.99.
You can cancel the subscription at any time in the settings of your iTunes account.
In order to use manager + outside of this app, you must link the subscription to a manager ID account immediately after purchase.
With the purchase you accept our general terms and conditions and privacy policy.
