The saga of listed firm Ince’s financial results reporting will continue after an admission that the revised target for sign-off has been missed.
Trading in Ince Group was suspended at the start of the year following a delay in publishing results for the year ended 31 March 2022. Ince said it had encountered ‘historic and legacy accounting’ issues which added more time to the audit process.
That announcement forecast that the results – as well as the first-half results for the current financial year – would be published by the end of January.
But that deadline was duly missed, as Ince told the London stock market on 31 January that auditors still needed more time and expected publication ‘no later than 10 February’.
Today, the company admitted it would fail to meet this latest target. Despite having made ‘substantial progress and now being in the final stages of quality control’, Ince requires two more weeks to complete the audit process.
As an extra embarrassment, the company had to send a replacement announcement two hours after its initial statement, after incorrectly giving the contact details for its broker Arden Partners.
Shares remain suspended at 5.15p, having traded at 32p a year ago. It has been a tumultuous year for the firm, which had to raise around £7m by issuing new shares to avoid ‘financial difficulties’ and deal with the aftermath of a cyber attack which cost an estimated £4.9m. Chief executive Adrian Biles stepped down and resigned from the board, while the recently-acquired corporate adviser Arden Partners had to be sold at an estimated £7m loss.
