Mike Ashley-backed Goals Soccer Centres to delist from stock market after ‘improper’ accounting
Goals Soccer Centres said today it will delist from the stock market after it discovered “improper behaviour” going back to 2010 that means it will be unable to file its accounts.
The move will be a blow to Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct which owns an 18 per cent stake in the company.
Goals said today that following an investigation into historical accounting practices around the recognition of revenue and the preparation of financial statements, “it has become very recently evident that there has been improper behaviour within the company”.
It said this had involved a number of individuals and dated back to at least 2010.
Read more: Goals Soccer Centres warns of weaker results amid accountancy blunder
Goals said this had led to “material uncertainty” about the company’s historical financial statements.
“Work on the Company’s full-year 2018 audit has therefore been suspended until further clarification on the historic financial statements has been obtained,” Goals said.
The company said it did not believe it would be able to meet the deadline of 30 September to publish its accounts, a key criteria to resume trading of its shares.
Trading in its shares was suspended in March after it said it had made a “substantial misdeclaration of VAT” totalling approximately £12m.
Read more: Goals Soccer Centres suspends trading due to historical accounting errors
It said it expects its listing on the Aim market to lapse with shares cancelled by 30 September.
Goals said there had been no material development in its dialogue with HMRC in establishing a timetable for resolving its misdeclaration of VAT and establishing a final value of money owed.
It said discussions with debt providers remain positive and and said they have confirmed debt facilities will remain in place after the initial 31 July review date, but said that one of its debt covenant thresholds had been exceeded.
Year-to-date sales across the 45 UK sites on a gross like-for-like basis are up 11.5 per cent.
Its US gross like-for-like sales are up 14.5 per cent.