| Fraud ring wipes out profits at DSG subsidiary |
| Written by Business Weekly | |
| Thursday, 29 March 2007 | |
|
Electrical retailer, DSG International has uncovered a fraud totaling between £8m to £10m at a Parisian warehouse operated by its subsidiary, Fotovista which could wipe out the operation's profit contributions for the financial year.
The Hemel Hempstead-based group said that it uncovered an anomaly in paperwork during a routine internal audit being conducted at the warehouse in Southern Paris. Further investigation found that the discrepancy was “rather more significant than originally estimated,” according to a company spokesman. He said that on making the discovery, the police were notified and during an ongoing investigation, had made a number of arrests including warehouse operatives. He added that due to management's prompt reaction, the firm was confident that the immediate issues had been resolved and that counter measures would prevent any future recurrence. Details of the counter-measures were not disclosed, to avoid issuing “a potential shopping list to anyone seeking to further defraud the system.” DSG said that while it would continue to investigate the effects of the issue, it expected the fraud to “substantially offset the profit contribution” of its new business division in the current financial year. Fotovista said that the sale of its French personal photography businesses, Primaphot and Maine Color for a cash consideration of £15.2m - also announced today - was in no way connected to the fraud. DSG's shares remained largely unchanged, gaining a marginal 0.23 per cent to 170.9p.
|
Delicious
Digg
NewsVine
Reddit
Technorati| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Advertisement
Site Login
 |