The technology group S&T AG (http://www.snt.at, ISIN AT0000A0E9W5, WKN A0X9EJ, SANT) today published a detailed statement on the allegations presented in the report of the short seller Viceroy Research Group LLC. The statement of S&T AG presents the facts in a transparent manner and refutes the allegations made by providing detailed historical as well as financial and legal background information. The statement is available on the company's website here.
S&T AG is committed to full transparency, comprehensive compliance and good corporate governance. For this reason, S&T has commissioned the auditing firm Deloitte to conduct an external forensic audit of the material allegations made by Viceroy. In addition, an external, independent expert will be appointed by the Supervisory Board of S&T AG as Chief Compliance Officer, who will in future be responsible for the topics of law, compliance and corporate governance on the S&T Executive Board. The measures initiated as part of S&T's "TTS" (Trust-Transparency-Share) program will be continued as planned. These include the further reduction of the complexity of the corporate structure and, as already announced, the appointment of a new auditor. To this end, the Supervisory Board will propose to the 2022 Annual General Meeting that KPMG will be appointed as the new auditor from the 2022 financial year.
Hannes Niederhauser, CEO of S&T AG, said: "Our statement shows that Viceroy Research has made numerous far-reaching misjudgments in its report, which do not stand up to an objective examination. We would like to point out that Viceroy Research did not contact S&T AG prior to the publication of its research report in order to even begin to validate the allegations made in it. In order to substantiate our messages in the statement, we have commissioned an external forensic audit by Deloitte. We will comment on the results of this independent audit as soon as these are available. Operationally, we continue to be within the expected range and maintain our current guidance for the current fiscal year. Project 'Focus', which is evaluating a divestment of our IT Services division, will also continue as planned."