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PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

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ADrunkenMarcus
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#201475

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » February 15th, 2019, 7:14 am

Götterdämmerung...

johnhemming
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#208052

Postby johnhemming » March 16th, 2019, 9:47 am

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... GTUK_email

The black hole in the accounts of the troubled cafe chain Patisserie Valerie was as much as £94m, more than twice previous estimates, according to forensic accountants.

ADrunkenMarcus
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#208583

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » March 19th, 2019, 11:36 am

Growing and growing!

Alaric
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#231586

Postby Alaric » June 23rd, 2019, 6:11 pm


ADrunkenMarcus
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#231587

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » June 23rd, 2019, 6:11 pm

Alaric wrote:More arrests


Good.

dspp
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#231670

Postby dspp » June 24th, 2019, 10:35 am

"In a statement, an SFO spokesperson said: “On Tuesday 18 June, as part of a joint operation with Hertfordshire, Leicestershire and the Metropolitan police services, five individuals were arrested and interviewed in connection with the Serious Fraud Office investigation into individuals associated with Patisserie Holdings PLC.”

"In addition to the SFO, the case attracted the attention of several other watchdogs, including the Financial Reporting Council, the Insolvency Service, the Aim market regulator and the HMRC fraud investigation service."

Unfortunately most of those bodies are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Hopefully some good will come out of this.

regards, dspp

dspp
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#254895

Postby dspp » September 30th, 2019, 1:48 pm

"Jamie Oliver takes £5.2m payout despite restaurant closures
Celebrity chef’s food and media empire increases sales to £43.5m due to licensing deals"


https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... t-closures

Elsewhere the dog that isn't barking is the class action lawsuit in respect of CAKE (PatVal). That strongly suggests to me that the wealthier investors behind it have managed a out-of-court settlement accompanied by a confidentiality clause. Has anyone heard otherwise ?

regards, dspp

dspp
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#267295

Postby dspp » November 26th, 2019, 12:00 pm

dspp wrote:"Jamie Oliver takes £5.2m payout despite restaurant closures
Celebrity chef’s food and media empire increases sales to £43.5m due to licensing deals"


https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... t-closures

Elsewhere the dog that isn't barking is the class action lawsuit in respect of CAKE (PatVal). That strongly suggests to me that the wealthier investors behind it have managed a out-of-court settlement accompanied by a confidentiality clause. Has anyone heard otherwise ?

regards, dspp


I've just received this from the solicitors that were touting for the class action lawsuit ...........

**************
Claim Against Patisserie Holdings PLC [TS-TSSDocs.FID540150]

Dear Shareholder

I thought it would be useful to send you a short update.

The company has now gone into liquidation and it is most unlikely that the liquidator will be able to make a distribution to shareholders I’m afraid.

Any legal action such as against the auditors will be for consideration by the liquidator.

Regards

[name, for solicitors]


*************

- dspp

Bouleversee
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#267317

Postby Bouleversee » November 26th, 2019, 12:47 pm

But, unbelievably, Luke Johnson is still writing his weekly column for the Sunday Times.

This is one dog I didn't hold but I have plenty of others with similar shady goings on. Perhaps it's the auditors who should be sued.

Dod101
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#267318

Postby Dod101 » November 26th, 2019, 12:53 pm

I too noticed that. Maybe the auditors should be sued but at least in this case it depends how far their duties lie. They did not pick up on the fraud and maybe they should have. Pretty obviously Luke Johnson put far too much trust in his execs and did not ask sufficient questions. He must also have been a pretty poor judge of character not to pick up on something suspicious about his Finance Director. How could the great results have continued with ne'er a hitch for so long?

scrumpyjack
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#267330

Postby scrumpyjack » November 26th, 2019, 1:26 pm

Yes it was often said that the auditor is a watchdog, not a bloodhound (but sometimes more of a lapdog?!)

Hard to believe in view of the scale of the fraud that the auditors were not negligent. Any negotiation on a settlement would have been between the Professional Indemnity Insurers and the claimants.

Luke must really have been asleep at the wheel with this one!

Dod101
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#267360

Postby Dod101 » November 26th, 2019, 2:24 pm

Taking a typical audit report, I find the following wording '...there remained the risk of non detection of irregularities, as these may involve collusion, forgery, intentional omissions, misrepresentations, or the override of internal controls.'

If these words or something like them were in the Patisserie audit reports, that would certainly provide a good first line of defence. All Annual Reports have a statement from the Directors admitting that they 'are responsible for the preparation of the Accounts and ensuring that they are free from material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error.....'

I think it would be very difficult for the auditors to be held responsible when clearly the Directors are the ones that fell down on the job.

Dod

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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#267368

Postby Bouleversee » November 26th, 2019, 2:40 pm

Are you sure that's all it was, Dod? I don't know about PatVal but I feel sure that with some of my holdings, the directors were part of the dodgy activity, not just incompetent.

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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#267403

Postby dspp » November 26th, 2019, 3:52 pm

In this case, imho, both the auditors and the directors were incompetent or stupid or both.

I invested (for my GF) in PatVal on the basis of the figures that indicated good and sustained performance over a number of years, i.e. not a flash-in-the-pan. Even so we assessed it as being the second-highest-risk investment in her portfolio.

They were neither good nor sustained, and that situation had been covered up from the get-go for a few years.

The auditors did not stand to gain much from their stupidity. A little, yes : a lot, no. The directors on the other hand stood to gain a lot, and did.

Ultimately I as a shareholder employ both the directors to run the company as well as reasonably possible on my behalf, and the auditors to ensure that what is being reported is true and fair.

It seems there is little or no meaningful way for a PI to hold either of them to account.

This is a sad state of affairs and will cause other smallcap companies in the UK to find it even more difficult to convince me to become their shareholder.

Insufficient or overly costly access to capital causes bad decision making, and poor allocation of capital, and is a societal drag.

We all (but a few) lose from this, and so lessons need to be learnt. Unless I see a prosecution (or many) taking place I do not think they are being learnt.

regards, dspp

Dod101
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#267418

Postby Dod101 » November 26th, 2019, 4:39 pm

I have no idea Bouleversee and dspp will have stronger feelings than I, he being or acting for, a shareholder. All I was trying to do was show how the auditors will presumably try to cover themselves in the event of a claim.

I should think that Johnson was happy to let the figures speak for themselves as he had fingers in many other pies. He could of course have been in collusion with his Finance Director but on the whole does that not seem a little unlikely? Even he would surely have known that the fraud could not go on forever.

I think the lesson to be drawn is the old one, if it looks too good to be true it probably is. Patisserie's margins were so far away from any other in the same business that we need to ask how can they manage that? But that is being wise after the event and is not exactly helpful to any shareholder.

Dod

ADrunkenMarcus
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#267557

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » November 27th, 2019, 7:54 am

dspp wrote:I invested (for my GF) in PatVal on the basis of the figures that indicated good and sustained performance over a number of years, i.e. not a flash-in-the-pan. Even so we assessed it as being the second-highest-risk investment in her portfolio.


I kicked myself because I sold CAKE in my SIPP in August 2018 at something like 420p (it had been 500p earlier in the summer), making a capital gain on my c. 322p purchase price from 2015, but did not sell it in my dividend growth portfolio. It was a small position, though, of less than 2% and a good day on the markets more than restored the capital value of the portfolio in short order. I wish I'd sold both, but it's better than not having sold either.

I can't get over the pile of cash they were supposed to have which never existed.

I want to see what happens to the CFO.

Best wishes

Mark.

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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#374553

Postby dspp » January 7th, 2021, 10:01 pm

"Grant Thornton sued for £200m over Patisserie Valerie audits
Lawsuit set to be one of largest brought against mid-tier accounting firm in London courts"


$FT at https://www.ft.com/content/af9fc1f2-ff6 ... feaab221e9

regards, dspp

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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#374646

Postby dspp » January 8th, 2021, 9:18 am

dspp wrote:"Grant Thornton sued for £200m over Patisserie Valerie audits
Lawsuit set to be one of largest brought against mid-tier accounting firm in London courts"


$FT at https://www.ft.com/content/af9fc1f2-ff6 ... feaab221e9

regards, dspp


Irish Times article unpaywalled at https://www.irishtimes.com/business/ret ... -1.4452739

"FRP Advisory, which is liquidating the bakery chain, in a report to creditors. It said it had engaged lawyers at Mishcon de Reya to sue the audit group for damages of about £200 million.

FRP said “large accounting misstatements” resulted in Patisserie Valerie’s board “being unaware that the group has insufficient funds to continue to trade”.

Grant Thornton said: “We will rigorously defend the claim. Patisserie Valerie is a case that involves sustained and collusive fraud, including widespread deception of the auditors. The claim ignores the board’s and management’s own failings.

“As the matter is subject to an ongoing FRC investigation and civil claim*, we are unable to comment further.”"


etc

* presumably this is the class action law suit, are there any others ?

- dspp

johnhemming
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#374666

Postby johnhemming » January 8th, 2021, 10:55 am

dspp wrote:Grant Thornton said: “We will rigorously defend the claim. Patisserie Valerie is a case that involves sustained and collusive fraud, including widespread deception of the auditors. The claim ignores the board’s and management’s own failings.


Its an interesting question as to in what circumstances accountants are not responsible for a failed audit. The idea of the audit is to check for the accounts being wrong. I would have thought material fraud was part of this (cf Wirecard).

Without having really studied the issue it looks like there was some fraud going on for a number of years.

ADrunkenMarcus
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Re: PATISSERIE HOLDINGS (CAKE)

#374973

Postby ADrunkenMarcus » January 8th, 2021, 9:20 pm

johnhemming wrote:Without having really studied the issue it looks like there was some fraud going on for a number of years.


And yet it had an IPO in 2014 and it should have all been checked. Were the financials right at that time? Or was it a 'slight' fraud which accelerated in 2015-16 until the collapse?

Best wishes


Mark.


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