Nobia: We were deceived by corrupt Finance – Business Week

Nobia’s CFO in the United States has brought the kitchen group hoodwinked by accounting tricks in the form of inflated assets. It says Nobia’s CFO.

Nobia’s CFO in the United States has brought the kitchen group hoodwinked by accounting tricks in the form of inflated assets: for example, the warehouse has not written down when products are sold.

So says Nobia’s CFO Mikael Norman fact that the company writes down SEK 96 million in the US operations, where Nobia is currently the exclusive Poggenpohl. No risk of further write-downs need to be made judges he did not exist.

“We have been misled by mainly a corrupt accountant of the US,” said Michael Norman, explaining that the majority of the impairment loss is derived from the first years after the fraud began, namely 2009-2011.

Someone outright embezzlement of money theft or similar, it is not if, but deception is all about balance sheet items such as inventories and accounts receivable, inflated by not written down when Products have been sold.

In recent years, the errors according to Mikael Norman amounted to approximately $ 1 million annually, and everything came to light when Nobia’s central finance function discovered two amounts from the respective years was suspected identical. Deloitte was connected to both the United States and other parts of the group drill the Nobia Annual accounting firm KPMG completed the accounts, and winded up the mess.

“The team worked almost day and night for two weeks and found the total scope, and now after transparency, we believe that there is no risk of more of these examples, “said Michael Norman.

The US accounts for about 2 percent of Nobia’s sales, which according to SME is expected to increase to 13, 4 billion in 2015 from 11.4 billion in 2014.

The required financial manager has been replaced. According to Mikael Norman, he has not enriched himself but embellished the result, perhaps because of perceived pressure to have to deliver good numbers.

Nobia has lost something on this?
“No, not really – it’s about the accrual of performance that has gone wrong. The balance sheet has been too big, but it’s nothing that has leaked out of the Group in the form of cash flow. We are extremely disappointed at having been hoodwinked and betrayed, but adjust this now and move on. “

Nobia’s auditor since fiscal year 2014, KPMG’s CEO George Pettersson, who is also the chief auditor for Handelsbanken, Skanska and Sandvik. In 2009-2013 was KPMG’s former CEO Helene Willenberg, today in charge of Thule as its only listed companies, responsible for Nobia’s audit.