Financial Statement Fiasco and All of CURA's CFOsSo I got curious of who was the CFO during the period leading up to 2021 and 2022 since the financial statements for those years can no longer be relied on and have to be restated. And low and behold, there have been quite a few CFOs, some with interesting reasons for their departure.
Neil Davidson was CFO from 2019 to 2020.
Michael Carlotti was CFO from Feb. 2020 to July 2021 (max 18 months)
Ranjan Kalia was CFO from July 2021 to March 2022 (max 8 months)
Neil Davidson was Interim CFO March 2022 to Aug. 2022 (max 5 months)
Ed Kremer new CFO Aug. 2022 to present.
So you can see, we are on our 4th/5th CFO since 2020 which is a terrible sign. One of the things auditors like is continuity in senior management, especially the CFO who is the leed person for the company on the audit. There are also interim audits during any given year that sets the stage for the year-end audit. The final year-end audit and financial statements/MD&A are the most crucial statements that any public company can provide to shareholders/investors/regulatory agenecies (SEDAR/CSE/SEC). So imagine, as an auditor, there is constantly someone new or else in that crucial role, red flags get raised.
It gets better, Carlotti leaves after 18 months for "medical reasons", which was all that was said (interesting). Kalia leaves after 8 months (replaced Carlotti) and his departure is "effective immediately" "to pursue other opportunities" and since they don't wish either Carlotti or Kalia all the best and thank them for their devoted service, it's code that the departure may have not been amicable. Then Davidson comes back as Interim CFO for 5 months in 2022 and then Kremer starts in Aug. of 2022 and is now in the middle of all this mess (I feel sorry for him).
CURA is my biggest position, but I'm not getting a good feeling about the state of their financial house being in order. It's scary the number of changes in CFOs and what the new CFO and the auditors have found when it comes to material weaknesses in their internal controls. I know that BOJO and CEO and the new CFO will try to downplay what has happened on their year-end call, but something doesn't smell right.