Last checked at 4 Feb 2019 07:00
4 February 2019
Ferrexpo plc("Ferrexpo", the "Group" or the "Company")
Independent Review
Ferrexpo's auditors, Deloitte LLP, has received copies of bank statements directly from a charitable foundation called Blooming Land, as part of its process to verify Blooming Land's use of contributions made by Ferrexpo. Blooming Land is a Ukrainian charity which was established with the primary function of co-ordinating the Group's CSR programme and provides medical and social services to local, regional and national communities throughout Ukraine. As noted in the 1H 2018 results, Blooming Land and its sub-funds are separately managed.
The copy bank statements from Blooming Land contained as yet unexplained discrepancies. This has caused the Board of Ferrexpo to decide to conduct a comprehensive independent review and is in the process of scoping the work.
As reported in the 1H 2018 results, Ferrexpo donated US$9.5 million to Blooming Land in 1H 2018. Ferrexpo has not made any further donations to Blooming Land since May 2018.
The Group intends to announce its FY 2018 results as planned on 20 March 2019. At the current time, the Board cannot guarantee that the review will be complete by then, or complete favourably. Deloitte has indicated that it may qualify or otherwise modify its audit opinion relating to the FY 2018 accounts if this is the case.
Following the Group's 4Q 2018 trading update, as announced on 8 January 2019, Ferrexpo expects full year 2018 EBITDA to be approximately US$500 million (subject to audit).
This announcement contains inside information in relation to the Company. The person responsible for making this notification is Brian McLelland, Interim Company Secretary.
For further information contact:
Ferrexpo: | |
Ingrid McMahon Head of Investor Relations
| +44 207 389 8304
|
Maitland: | |
James Isola | +44 207 379 5151 |
Partner | |
Notes to Editors:
Ferrexpo is a Swiss headquartered iron ore company with assets in Ukraine. It has been mining, processing and selling high quality iron ore pellets to the global steel industry for 40 years. Ferrexpo's resource base is one of the largest iron ore deposits in the world. In 2018, the Group produced 10.6 million tonnes of pellets ranking it as the 3rd largest exporter of pellets to the global steel industry with a market share of approximately 8.5%. Ferrexpo has a diversified customer base supplying steel mills in Austria, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Turkey and Vietnam. Ferrexpo has a premium listing on the main market of the London Stock Exchange under the ticker FXPO. For further information, please visit www.ferrexpo.com