WANdisco (LSE: WAND), the data activation platform, provides the following revision to its anticipated trading performance and financial position.
Following investigations undertaken by the CFO and CEO, and as reported to the Board of Directors of the Company (the “Board”), significant, sophisticated and potentially fraudulent irregularities with regard to received purchase orders and related revenue and bookings, as represented by one senior sales employee, have been discovered. These irregularities give rise to a potential material mis-statement of the Company’s financial position.
The identification of these irregularities will significantly impact the Company’s cash position and lead to a material uncertainty regarding its overall financial position and significant going concern issues. The Board now expects that anticipated FY22 revenue could be as low as USD 9 million and not USD 24 million as previously reported. In addition, the Company has no confidence in its announced FY22 bookings expectations.
As far as I can tell that is revenue they’re talking about too, not net revenue.
*Whistles cheery tune past the graveyard….*
WANdisco’s technology allows businesses to move large amounts of data into cloud computing, a process that can be time-consuming and fraught with risks.
Last year its sales rose by 1,200pc to $127m after what it described as the “rapid proliferation” of the Internet of Things.
Well, maybe it did……
It’s a funny firm.
Not long back their main advertised business was helping companies use a version control system called Subversion which was at that time decidedly elderly and on its way out replaced by a much better free alternative called Git. Despite it being hard to see how they would make that much cash out of that line of work they had nice fancy glass city centre premises , the costs of which must have been horrendous. Then a couple of years ago we had a buzz word infusion (‘cloud’ , ‘internet of things’) and then this.
“they had nice fancy glass city centre premises”
That’s when the alarm goes off!
“technology allows businesses to move large amounts of data into cloud computing”
It’s an HGV filled with disks?
“they had nice fancy glass city centre premises”
Indeed.
As pointed out by C. Northcote Parkinson all those years ago.
Have anyone checked who the board members are and if the CEO is pretty women?
Have anyone checked who the board members are and if the CEO is pretty women?
With the one exception of Chief Scientist and co-founder Dr. Yeturu Aahlad, the Board is completely pale, stale and male – perhaps a bit of diversity could have been helpful?
“significant”, “significantly impact”, “significant going concern issues”, “expects that anticipated”
These people wallow in shitespeak, don’t they? I wonder whether it impairs their ability to think.
Dearieme… You can’t expect them to say: “We’ve been asleep at the helm, and someone pulled a fast one on us. So much so, that we should be fired for incompetence, and some of us should really end up in jail.”
People might get Ideas….
Odds on it’s the directors who are responsible,rathet than the solitary salesman they blame in the announcement. The 2021 accounts are a horror story.
The company hasn’t made profit in years but cash levels are rising. Funded by share issues. Debtors increasing but creditors static. It doesn’t obviously make sense.
Working capital as a percentage of turnover is for most companies around 25 to 35%,for Wand it was 373%! Something odd was happening.
I guess ROCE of negative 105%, CROCI of negative 99%, and free cash conversion of negative 100% have a story to tell. I hope no one here had much of a stake in this
It seems only yesterday – wait, it was yesterday – that they were proposing to move their listing to New York.
Not going to happen today, I suspect.
The FTA follow-up is amusing – The Customer With No Name.
dearieme said:
“These people wallow in shitespeak, don’t they? I wonder whether it impairs their ability to think.”
Doesn’t the inability to think usually come first?