When the most important thing is what not it is said that this is usually not a good sign. Then there is mistrust and the bad mood takes on a life of its own. As in the case of the Adler Group, which was last battered. He confirmed his positive forecast for the year as a whole early on Tuesday morning: It was said that when adjusted for space there would be 3.9 percent more rental income, and the company’s most recently almost 70,000 apartments had increased in value by 8.7 percent. Of these, almost 30,000 apartments would be sold as planned, with total proceeds of 2.4 billion euros. The money should then be used to pay off debts.
Only, none of it got caught: by the afternoon, the share listed in the S-Dax had fallen by more than 20 percent to EUR 8.63 – and thus again significantly lower than its last negative record at the beginning of October. Since the beginning of the year, Adler has lost around 70 percent of its value.
The reason for the recent crash is also related to the events of almost two months ago: At that time Viceroy, the company of the notorious shortseller Fraser Perring, published a report on Adler and made serious allegations about the company. The management, it says, has artificially inflated the balance sheet and is withdrawing money from companies it has taken over. In the background, the Austrian businessman Cevdet Caner actually controls the company, even if he officially has no function in the group. Adler immediately rejected the allegations from the report, stating that valuations and transactions had been independently assessed and audited. Caner also publicly defended himself against the allegations in several interviews and filed charges against Perring.
However, Adler has so far failed to provide detailed answers to the diverse and fairly detailed allegations in the report – including on Tuesday. Although the two CEOs Maximilian Rienecker and Thierry Beaudemoulin even briefly presented the figures for the third quarter again in the afternoon, they did not address Perring’s allegations or the price drop on the day. Just so much: KPMG’s auditors are tasked with examining previous deals by the company. When their report will be available and whether Adler will publish it, however, also remained open. Rienecker and Beaudemoulin did not even allow questions after their presentation. In any case, they did not alleviate the distrust of investors: the Adler share plummeted even further immediately after the end of her lecture.