Aviation services company AIR (Air partner) is getting hammered again today, I see. It is down 19.8% to 83p.
As early as March, it reached a share price of over 150p. The big drop is attributable to the year-end update issued on 3 April:
The Board of Air Partner has identified, during the course of its year-end review process, an issue predominantly relating to its accounting for receivables and deferred income. …
They quantify the amounts involved:
the Board presently understands that the cumulative amount … is approximately £3.3 million
The shares, obviously, dropped when the announcement was made, with a further fall today.
AIR is of particular interest to me, because it is a share that I have never owned, and in fact stood on the sidelines enviously as others made a packet out of this company.
Paul Scott commented about the over on Stockopedia on 3 April:
This seems to be saying that bad debts … were not written off through the P&L. Instead they were offset against a balance sheet creditor
He wavered in his opinion, but said:
Overall, my feeling is that share price drop of around 20% today looks about right. It’s very concerning that the company appears to be admitting today to having falsely accounted for bad debts, and hence boosted cumulative reported profits by £3.3m. … Based on today’s announcement, I don’t see any reason to panic.
It seems that news was expected today to update the market, although I do not see any official mention of it. So maybe that’s just speculation. Given that the time is now 4:17pm, all I can say that if there is news issued today, it will likely be atrocious.
Answers on a postcard.
I note that the company’s P/FCF is 8.5, and that it reports net cash. I am not a holder.
83p
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