MADRID (Reuters) – Short-seller fund Gotham City Research on Tuesday issued a second report on Grifols, maintaining some of its questions over the Spanish pharmaceutical company’s accounting practices.
Gotham City’s new report focuses on the links between Grifols and Scranton Enterprises NV, an investment vehicle partly linked with the Grifols’ founding family.
The short seller said the management changes made by Grifols since its first report last month “indicate to us that at least some of our concerns are valid”.
Grifols did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the second Gotham City report. It denied any wrongdoing after the release of the first report and filed a U.S. lawsuit against Gotham City founder Daniel Yu and the company, seeking damages.
Grifols shares have fallen by around 23% since Gotham City published its first report on Jan. 9 questioning the company’s accounting practices and the size of its debt, wiping around 2 billion euros ($2.15 billion) off its value.
Grifols has made changes to its corporate governance, mainly withdrawing members of the Grifols family from executive jobs.
On Tuesday, shares in Grifols were down 5.7% in morning trade, after partly recovering over the past two weeks.
($1 = 0.9286 euros)
(Reporting by Inti Landauro; editing by Jesús Aguado, Kirsten Donovan)
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