Icon: enlarge
Grenke:
The leasing specialist came across deficiencies in-house
Photo: Uli Deck / dpa
The leasing specialist Grenke came across deficiencies in-house after severe criticism of business practices and accounting.
"As part of the ongoing audits, there have been critical preliminary evaluations of previous internal processes in the compliance organization and internal auditing," the company announced on Monday in Baden-Baden.
Group board member
Mark Kindermann is
leaving the management team with immediate effect.
The Baden-Baden group left open on Monday what exactly the long-standing COO - the head of operations - is being accused of.
The price of the Grenke share crashed after the news by up to 37 percent.
Most recently, the price in the afternoon was still 30.49 percent in the red at EUR 26.76 and was thus by far the bottom in the SDax small-cap index.
As early as 2020, the Grenke share had lost almost 60 percent as a result of the corona pandemic and violent allegations of manipulation by a short seller against the group.
The paper is now even around 70 percent cheaper than it was a year ago.
The investor group Viceroy Research publicly attacked Grenke in mid-September and accused the group of, among other things, an opaque business model with unfair practices, fictitious profits and excessively reported cash holdings.
The Grenke franchising system is a fraud structure that is used to either hide air bookings for funds or divert money.
Behind the shortseller Viceroy is the Briton Fraser Perring, he was one of the first critics of the payment processor Wirecard, which collapsed in a balance sheet fraud scandal in June 2020.
more on the subject
Expert opinion relieved: Grenke remains in the gray area
Isabel Rösler: Grenke appoints an auditor as head of risk
Share gains: Grenke counters investor attack with a strategic swing
Grenke then commissioned various auditors to carry out internal investigations and saw himself relieved on essential points in October, initially by special auditors from KPMG and in mid-December by a further report by the auditors from Warth & Klein Grant Thornton (WKGT).
At the same time, the company announced that it would end the heavily criticized franchise system.
In addition, Grenke had created a new board position for risk management and filled it with the former PwC consultant Isabel Rösler on January 1 of this year.
The company wants to make itself less vulnerable.
Now Grenke announced that a speedy continuation of the exams and their completion would have "top priority".
Independently of this, the financial supervisory authority Bafin is currently also scrutinizing the company.
Grenke is silent on the exact problems
The Grenke Group initially left open which critical points were specifically discovered during the audit.
Kindermann pointed out to the supervisory board that the preliminary evaluations of the internal processes would have to be revised after the audit had been completed.
"In order to avoid a dispute about the justification and the materiality of these points of criticism before the end of the examinations and to keep the company away from potential damage, Mr. Kindermann resigned his mandates today," the company said.
The Supervisory Board thanked the manager for his many years of service in the group.
The supervisory body will decide on the reorganization of responsibilities in the board at short notice.
Kindermann started at Grenke in 1990 and was later promoted to the board.
Since 2006 he has been responsible for the corporate areas of administration, human resources, accounting, quality management, internal services and exploitation as well as the administration of real estate and buildings.
rei / dpa-afx / Reuters