Wirecard insolvent

[JamesMuenchen]

Large German fintec company, Wirecard, is bust.

https://www.ft.com/content/ac949729-616 ... aa71aca193
Wirecard collapsed on Thursday as the once high-flying German payments service provider announced it would file for insolvency following revelations of a multiyear accounting fraud.

It is the first insolvency of a member of Germany’s Dax index of blue-chip companies in its 32-year history.

As it's a DAX member this will impact a lot of funds, and may have some global impact.

The FT was on their case for a long time and have made their articles free to read. This one is the history of the debacle:
https://www.ft.com/content/284fb1ad-ddc ... 09b36868db

[anon155742]

As it's a DAX member this will impact a lot of funds, and may have some global impact.

Fingers crossed!

[johnhemming]

It looks like another case where a business has not really made a proper profit for some time and at a point they could no longer conceal this.

[JamesMuenchen]

It looks like another case where a business has not really made a proper profit for some time and at a point they could no longer conceal this.

Yes.

It's a cringe that they got away with it for so long, and in the face of so much evidence. German establishment circled the wagons again.

I know many good people that work there, so it's a very sad day.

[johnhemming]

It is almost certainly the case that within the business there is something that works, but it is unclear as to what is cash generative. I bought a couple of companies out of administration in the past (about 20 years ago), but it did not turn out well. This like PV (although that was not tech) is a situation where it is unclear what actually makes money. Probably something does.

[Mike4]

What exactly do Wirecard do?

A news report on R4 tonight saying they went bust but not to worry, everyone's money is still safe even if they don't currently have access to it. I can't image a more worrying news report....

[JamesMuenchen]

It gets better!

German regulators went after Wirecard whistleblowers and short sellers. They asked the FCA to perform searches, but were denied.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wire ... SKCN24H0KM

Now it transpires that employees of German's financial regulator, which banned shorting Wirecard, were trading an increasing amount of wirecard shares and derivatives.

https://www.reuters.com/article/wirecar ... SL8N2FG4D3