Johannesburg – The Johannesburg Stock Exchange has fined Tongaat Hulett R7.5 million and publicly censored it for publishing financial statements that contained errors.
On Wednesday the company released a statement where it said: “Tongaat Hulett notes and accepts both the findings and the public censure issued by the JSE”.
Just last year, the KwaZulu Natal based company was embroiled in a financial scandal that showed accounting irregularities as a result of inflated profits. The company’s shares plummeted and were subsequently suspended from the JSE for seven months. Since its return to the market, its stock has gained just under 17% and its shares have slumped 96% over the past five years.
Tongaat was forced to include a statement in its annual financial statements for the year ended March 2019 and the company’s unaudited interim financial results for the six months ended September 2019, as previous financial statements had contained “a substantial number of prior errors,” said the JSE.
“The accuracy and reliability of financial information published by companies are of critical importance in ensuring a fair, efficient and transparent market.”
According to The JSE, the financial impact of the statements of prior errors in the annual financial statement for the year ended 31 March 2018 were material in that namely, total assets decreased by about R10 billion, representing a decrease in total assets.
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