Frasers Group, the owner of Sports Direct, House of Fraser and Flannels, has delayed publication of its full annual results for the third time in four years, blaming a logjam in the audit industry.
The group, which is controlled by Mike Ashley, said full results would be delayed by at least a month as “the timing of the acquisition and resource constraints within the audit industry as a whole”, meant it could not include figures for its newly acquired business, Studio Retail, until September.
However, the rest of the group’s annual results will be released in July, as planned, and the company said it continued to expect pre-tax profits of between £300m and £350m for the year to 24 April.
Frasers paid £26.8m to acquire Studio Retail, which sells cut-price own-brand products from clothing and furnishings to gifts and cards, out of administration in February.
A statement released on Friday afternoon said the delay in the group’s results related to the need for “specialist skills and experience” to audit Studio Retail’s financial statements which “contain significant judgemental areas, particularly around consumer credit related provisions”.
However, the delay has echoes of previous audit woes for Ashley’s empire.
The group, under its former name Sports Direct, was labelled “an embarrassment to UK corporate governance” in 2019 after the chaotic announcement of its annual results, including multiple delays and the shock revelation of a €674m (£614m) tax bill.
The debacle led to an acrimonious split with the accounting firm Grant Thornton, and then more than a month’s delay before the appointment of its replacement, RSM.
The company was forced to send a letter to the business secretary, Andrea Leadsom, explaining its difficulties in finding a suitable adviser to check its annual accounts.
In 2020, Frasers again delayed its results presentation – this time for a week – saying it needed more time to complete an audit.
