- Misses release deadline
- Contravenes listings requirements
- Profits dramatically decline
- Risks suspension, delisting
Gazette Reporter
Choppies Enterprises Limited, the colossal retail chain supermarket, has failed again to file its audited financial results on time with the Botswana Stock Exchange Limited (BSEL) and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), where the firm is dual listed.
This week, Choppies, under the captaincy of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ramachandran Ottapathu announced that it will not be able to meet the deadline of publishing the results for the year ended 30 June 2018. The financial results were supposed to have been filed on or before the 30th of September 2018. However, Choppies announced on the BSEL that the finalisation of these results is taking longer than had been anticipated.
“A number of matters requiring the attention of the board and management, which may materially impact on the results, are still being considered and the possible reporting impacts of these matters have not yet been finally and fully determined”, Choppies announced. The company said the group will not publish the results for the year ended 30 June 2018 by the required deadline of 30 September 2018, and rather anticipates that it will publish them on or before the 15th October 2018. Choppies has fallen into the habit of failing to release financials on time. During the previous half year reporting period, Choppies, together with other companies were facing the possible wrath of the BSEL after it threatened to crack the whip on them for failing to publish results on time.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Thapelo Tsheole then wrote to Choppies, including other companies, cautioning them of failure to publish the financial results, which is in contravention to Section 3.21 of the BSE Listings Requirements.
In the communique to the companies, the BSE wrote that, “Shareholders and market participants are cautioned of the threat of suspension of securities or possible termination of the listings of the same.”
Further, Choppies also expects the results to be lower than those reported during the previous corresponding period.
In terms of paragraph 3.4 (b) of the JSE Limited Listings Requirements, companies are expected to publish a trading statement as soon as they have reasonable certainty that the financial results for the next period to be reported upon will differ by at least 20 percent or more.
Based on the results compiled to date, Choppies board announced that it had certainty that the Group’s profit after tax for the year ended 30 June 2018 will be at least 20 percent or P14.9 million lower when compared to the P74.64 profit reported during the previous corresponding period.