Wirecard chairman resigns in midst of accounting controversy

Bloomberg

Wirecard AG Chairman Wulf Matthias resigned after months of controversy over the digital payments company’s accounting practices.
Matthias stepped down as chairman of the supervisory board for personal reasons, and will be replaced by Thomas Eichelmann, the Aschheim, Germany-based company said Friday in a statement. Matthias will remain a member of the board.
The payment processor’s shares have whipsawed for more than a year after several media reports raised questions about accounting methods, all of which the company has rejected. The concerns relate to Wirecard’s Singapore operations. Wirecard has said its reporting obligations were “followed properly.”
Wirecard’s revenue soared in 2018 after it bought more than 15 companies in a few years. But in a series of articles last year, the Financial Times reported allegations of accounting fraud at Wirecard in Singapore and other Asian countries. The company hired law firm Rajah & Tann to investigate. A final report from the firm in March 2019 acknowledged accounting oversights and potential criminal liability among some Singapore staff, but didn’t find evidence of criminal activity linked to Wirecard’s German headquarters.
The FT then reported in October that payments processed by a Dubai-based partner company in 2016 and 2017 may not have taken place. Wirecard called those allegations “total nonsense.”