MCA ORDERS PROBE INTO VAKRANGEE’S ACCOUNTS
Investigation would also look into the resignation of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the company’s auditor five months ago
The corporate affairs ministry has ordered an inspection of Vakrangee’s books for three financial years, five months after Price Waterhouse resigned as the firm’s auditor. The process will include scrutiny of the auditor’s resignation, Vakrangee’s tax filings in the past five years, the number of outlets across India through which it provides financial services, and its shareholding structure, the company said in a filing to the exchange. The investigation comes after Vakrangee shares crashed more than 93 percent this year as it is one of the several Indian companies that have faced auditor resignations, leading investors to doubt their accounting and business practices. Vakrangee said it would “fully co-operate” with the investigation and try to complete the process at the earliest.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has ordered an inspection of Vakrangee’s books for three financial years, five months after PricewaterhouseCoopers quit as the firm’s auditor.
The process will include scrutiny of the auditor’s resignation, Vakrangee’s tax filings in the past five years, the number of outlets across India through which it provides financial services, and its shareholding structure, the company said in a filing to the exchange.
The investigation comes after Vakrangee shares crashed more than 93 per cent this year as it is one of the several companies that have faced auditor resignations, leading investors to doubt their accounting and business practices.
Vakrangee said it will “fully co-operate” with the investigation and try to complete the process at the earliest. The statement didn’t give any details on the timeline of the investigation.
In January, some media reports said Vakrangee has come under Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) lens for alleged price and volume manipulation of its own scrip at BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), sending the stock into a free fall.
In the past two years, the stock has had a good run and gained a huge 677 per cent - from ~65 on January 23, 2015 to ~505 on January 25, 2018. By comparison, the benchmark Sensex gained 23 per cent during the same period.
Vakrangee is the unique technology driven company focused on building India's largest network of last-mile retail outlets to deliver real-time banking, insurance, e-governance, e-commerce and logistics services to the unserved & underserved rural, semi-urban and urban markets.
The company is the country's first-largest enrolment agency empanelled with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), permitting pan-India enrolment of Aadhaar Card, the 12digit individual identification number issued by the Central government.