Globo turmoil as boss quits after admitting faking sales

GLOBO faces an uncertain future after its boss and finance director quit after apparently admitting that company sales were falsified.

The AIM-listed mobile phone software firm also disclosed that chief executive Costis Papadimitrakopoulos, a former professional windsurfer, sold most of his Globo shares in the days before the allegations emerged.

Globo – which sponsors Greek Olympic windsurfing hopeful Byron Kokkalanis ( pictured) – is facing the prospect of probes by the London Stock Exchange and the Serious Fraud Office, while joint corporate broker Canaccord Genuity yesterday resigned with immediate effect.

Several directors, including Papadimitrakopoulos, are understood to have gone AWOL.

Allegations of fraudulent accounting at Globo blew up thanks to an investigation by global equity fund Quintessential Capital Management (QCM), which said it was alerted by online rumours.

QCM claimed last week that Globo was ‘massively overstating its revenue and profit by generating fictitious sales invoices from shell companies created and controlled by Globo to pose as legitimate clients’.

Although the company’s shares were suspended on Friday, it initially issued a statement saying that it ‘completely refutes [sic]’ QCM’s allegations. But sources close to the firm said Papadimitrakopoulous admitted on Saturday to fellow board members in a prepared statement that accounts had been falsified.

He and finance director Dimitris Gryparis both resigned, while chief operating officer Gerasimos Bonanos was later suspended. The firm has now set up an independent board committee and called in external auditors to assess its finances. It also disclosed Papadimitrakopoulos had sold more than 40m shares, worth more than £12m at Thursday’s opening share price, in the days leading up to the release of QCM’s report.

Globo said it had ‘requested additional details about these dealings and does not yet possess all relevant information about their timing and nature’.