Goldplat Share Discussion Threads

[lowtrawler] 13/2/2023 12:02

shill10, whether we speculate everything is innocent and about to come good or whether we speculate a problem, we are powerless until the accounts are published and the shares tradeable. Only then are we likely to have the information to make an informed judgement.

[dangersimpson2] 13/2/2023 11:57

It is worth bearing in mind that BDO also appears to be messing Ince around:



Not that I'm necessarily holding up Ince as a paragon of financial control, but there is a pattern here of them missing audit deadlines for more complex small caps.

[shill10] 13/2/2023 11:37

if GKG were taking the hit for anything bad(other than the appointment of a useless auditor perhaps) then Werner would not be stating his "sincere thanks" to GKG and keeping him on the payroll imo.

[shill10] 13/2/2023 11:33

Kimboy, not sure why you've changed your mind re BDO when we already have evidence of them delating the results of another company by NINE MONTHS simply due to understaffing ?

[shill10] 13/2/2023 11:31

All true, but GDP has twice stated that they still expect results to be in line with expectations....which leads us back to BDO as the culprit, like you say though, we must wait and see.

[lowtrawler] 13/2/2023 11:13

My deeper concern is whether the audit has identified an issue requiring investigation. GDP have complex accounting arrangements with their customers and there are also a lot of related party transactions. The complexity of the GDP accounts is way beyond their size. It would not surprise me were the auditors to find an issue.

It has been said that GDP would need to make a statement to this effect if it were happening. As the shares are suspended, I think they could argue for not making a statement until the investigation is complete.

[lowtrawler] 13/2/2023 11:04

cameron, we have been giving GDP the benefit of the doubt on the Annual Accounts, pointing the finger towards BDO. We have speculated they may not want to make trading updates until the audit is out of the way. These may turn out to be valid, we can only wait and see. Similarly, Gerard remains on the BOD and so it is a change of role rather than him leaving entirely.

The share suspension means we cannot know how the market interprets what is going on and we are powerless to act on our own views. My guess is, even if everything turns out innocent, the reputation of GDP management will take a hit and the share price will move back into single figures when the suspension is over.

[camerongd53] 13/2/2023 10:43

There would have been a board meeting, possibly zoom, to approve the change of chair.
They must have decided to say nothing on the information we are expecting that is overdue

[lowtrawler] 13/2/2023 07:57

Kimboy, yes, 3 red flags. We can hope there is nothing untoward behind any of them but it's not looking good.

[kimboy2] 13/2/2023 07:44

So Gerard has stood down, without explanation. There is no Q2/23 update, as there was last year. There is still no 2021/22 full year results.

I don't think anyone can be confident that we are going to get the results by the 20th February.

It is very difficult to believe that BDO have been this inefficient.

[lowtrawler] 09/2/2023 13:17

baht, I notice both documents are now available again.

[baht] 07/2/2023 18:12

Not heard back yet.

[itsyou] 06/2/2023 13:09

They were accessible.

Let's hope they're currently in the process of updating both, with just resolution 1 in it, having had to defer it from the 2022 AGM.

[lowtrawler] 06/2/2023 12:46

baht, have you emailed them to ask?

[baht] 06/2/2023 12:38

The 6 Dec 2022 RNS ref the “Notice of AGM” states The notice of AGM and form of proxy will be available on the Company's website at [...] “
The downloads section of the website has annual accounts etc from 2011 onwards but surprisingly when you try to access either document.

"NOT FOUND

The requested URL was not found on this server

Additionally a 404 Not Found Error was encountered while trying to
use an ErrorDocument to handle request."


Doesn’t seem quite right . Especially when all the other documents going back to 2011 seem to work perfectly well.

[camerongd53] 01/2/2023 10:18

I don't think there is anything legally to prevent a dividend being declared although I may be proved wrong.
The main legal criteria for the directors to declare an interim dividend is that they believe that there are sufficient available distributable profits. A final dividend I suspect requires approval by shareholders.
There is nothing wrong I believe in sdvance of the publication of the accounts saying it is their intention to propose a final dividend of ?pence per share.

[shanklin] 01/2/2023 07:39

Is there anything stopping GDP announcing a dividend befpre the release of results?

[lowtrawler] 01/2/2023 01:21

kimboy, sensible comments as always. My only issue would be with announcement of a 0.5p dividend. IMV, that will do more harm than good - the share price may move to provide a c.8% dividend yield and so fall dramatically. If they are to introduce a dividend, I think it has to be for around 1p. Anything less is sending the wrong message.

[camerongd53] 31/1/2023 17:54

As a former auditor something is seriously wrong.
I would have thought that a significant and publically quoted audit should never get close to the apparent shambles GDP is in at the eminent and that is an understatement
The audit I would have thought should consist of 2 stages:-
1. Interim audit where operating transactions are tested for fraud, reliability etc together with a review of each month's results to see that the reporting systems (trial balance etc.) can be relied upon to produce accounts and the annual report. I would expect this to be completed by approx. the 9 month stage. Therefore any issues discovered can be addressed and resolved by the year end. This should require open and good communication between the GDP finance staff and BDO auditors. All issues should should be addressed and resolved by the year end.
2. Final Audit includes a review of the last quarter's transactions and results for unexpected movements, outturns etc. which will give us the P&L account figures. Verifications of all balance sheet amounts for which the reliability and reasonableness should and will have been tested during the interim audit.

Based on my experience as an auditor, and as detailed above, there is no reason for not having a completed audit within 4 months of the year end.

GDP issues quarterly update approx. 4+ weeks after quarter ends which implies the company is happy with their procedures.
The December quarter 3 update is now due.
The full set of interim accounts would normally expect to appear in a matter of weeks.

Being flippant I note the audit report is now only due by 20 February - did they say the year was 2023 or 2024??

[lowtrawler] 31/1/2023 12:06

shill10, I'm not aware of anything which would prevent GDP from issuing unaudited trading statements. I suppose the concern would be issuing something which subsequently proves to be misleading due to adverse audit findings. If, as GDP indicate, no audit concerns have been brought to their attention, I do not see a problem.

[shill10] 31/1/2023 11:36

thanks Lowtrawler - as an ex Auditor perhaps you will know, is it possible for GDP to issue an update on trading while suspended/results not issued ? Surely this should be the first thing Werner should be doing to allay the fears of some shareholders ?

[dangersimpson2] 31/1/2023 10:56

I’m fairly certain the auditors will be replaced at the earliest opportunity. The problem as others have pointed out is that they also lose their leverage for them to do the job now.

The risk is they have the same problem with a new auditor. Multiple countries, currencies and jurisdictions don’t help matters, as does being a low priority for many auditors since they are unlikely to want their “consultancy” services where they actually make the money.

I know it is not really the done thing anymore, but I’d like them to issue unaudited prelims in early September and then we’d at least have the figures. They clearly have reasonable financial systems in place since they can produce operating profit figures for each business unit a month after each quarter, and the audited figures rarely vary by much when published.

Having prelims released early puts pressure on the auditors (and internally) to deliver since people will see a 5 months delay to produce audited figures that are largely the same as the prelims as an auditor failure. At the moment, the assumption is that the company is to blame. This may or may not be true, and we’ll never really know, whereas if we had had prelims 4 months ago and the audited results were the same we’d know it was auditor incompetence.

[pog1234] 31/1/2023 10:41

I am utterly disappointed at the extended delay. It was bad enough with January 20, but to extend it another month is appalling.

I would like to know the reason for the delay. That is the least I would expect from the BOD.

[russman] 31/1/2023 10:11

Reputation is in banana tatters.