Troubled transport group Go-Ahead has delayed the publication of its financial results for a third time as investigations continue into its rail franchise scandal.
The Newcastle-based rail and bus group has been in crisis since September when it admitted that it had not declared £25m of funding relating to the London & South Eastern Railway (LSER) contract.
The company’s Govia joint-venture, in which it has a two-thirds share, was later stripped of the contract and it is facing a fine from the Government.
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Trading in Go-Ahead’s shares have been suspended since the start of the year after auditor Deloitte said it needed more time to finalise financial results for the company. Those results were delayed first to January 3 and then to the end of the month, but a third delay has now been announced.
In a statement to the Stock Exchange, the company said: “Further to the announcement on 9 December 2021, the group has been advised by Deloitte that it requires additional time to complete the audit of the Group’s results for the year ended 3 July 2021 (FY21 results). The group continues to work closely with Deloitte to ensure that the FY21 results are published as soon as possible. Publication is now expected to be before the end of February 2022.
“Accordingly, trading in Go-Ahead’s shares and corporate bond will remain suspended. The group intends to request restoration of trading in both its shares and bonds with effect from publication of its FY21 results.”
The Department for Transport (DfT) stripped Go-Ahead of the busy LSER route – which covers South East England, including London, Kent and East Sussex – in October. The company’s chief financial officer, Elodie Brian, resigned after the decision to take over the franchise was announced.
The company, which had run the LSER contract as part of a joint venture with French group Keolis, has apologised for its action and said that it expects to be fined over the issue, though as there is no specific precedent for such matters, the amount of any penalty was unclear.
The announcement comes five days after a director at the crisis-hit company had to step down after the company was told his narrow re-election was a mistake.
At the company’s AGM at the end of last year director Adrian Ewer, who had been senior independent director and chair of the company’s audit committee, was re-elected to the board, despite 47% of shareholders voting against the move,
Last week, however, it emerged that an error by its registrar meant that 3.2m proxy votes submitted by shareholders had not been counted - and taking those votes into account, Mr Ewer would have been voted out. As a result, Mr Ewer stood down with immediate effect.
Go-Ahead is the North East’s third largest company by turnover and employs around 30,000 people running bus and rail services in the UK and abroad.
