Manganese Bronze (MNGS) - the end is nigh?
Further to its original announcement on the 19 July 2012, Manganese Bronze Holdings, the manufacturer of the traditional London ‘black cab’, has announced that it is delaying the release of its unaudited half-year results for the six months ending 30 June 2012. The market reacted strongly with shares in the Group losing almost one-third of their value on Tuesday, after they blamed considerable errors in their IT system for a £3.9m accounting gap.
The Group announced on the 19 July 2012 that their interim results would be announced on 20 August 2012. One has to question whether they were aware of the problem then and why has it taken so long to recognise this glaring error (the accounting error can be backtracked to 2010!). The group blame a combination of procedural and system errors for the accounting black-hole after they processed residual balances in the new IT system. This problem led to an over-statement of stock (which is fairly easy to assess!) and an understatement of liabilities in the financial statements of previous…