The newly installed finance director of St James House (SJH), Mr Daniel Pym, (appointed on 30 September 2020) hasn’t exactly got off to the best of starts because his announcement of delays in completion of the audit citing COVID 19 and “complexities in relation to fair value adjustments of certain assets” means that the shares will be suspended on 2 November 2020. Given these accounts are for the year ended 31 January 2020, the COVID 19 excuse isn’t credible as management has had 9 months to finalise the financial statements and major companies have published not only their 31 December 2019 accounts but also their interim accounts for the six months ended 30 June 2020. I look at three of the lower quality assets on the balance sheet where if I was the auditor exercising my professional scepticism, I would be requiring management to take major write downs:
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