FRC launches investigation into Mitie accounts

Britain’s accounting watchdog has launched a fresh investigation into outsourcing specialist Mitie’s financial statements for 2016.

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said the probe was related to the: ”preparation and approval” of Mitie’s accounts for the year ending March 31 2016, but the outsourcing giant said it understands that it does not relate to any current or former directors of the group, including former finance chief Sandip Mahajan, who the company announced earlier this month was stepping down.

It comes just months after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it was launching its own investigation into the preparation and content of Mitie’s financial statements for the period, as well as the “timeliness” of a profit warning announced in September 2016.

The most recent FRC probe also adds to an ongoing investigation into Deloitte’s auditing of Mitie’s books, announced in July, but the watchdog has now closed its corporate reporting review into the firm’s annual report and 2016 accounts, saying that its concerns have been “satisfactorily addressed”.

Profit warnings

The watchdog said the results of the ongoing investigations would be released “as appropriate in due course”.

Mitie, which has already been under pressure amid a string of recent profit warnings, updated markets with half-year results that showed a narrowing of bottom-line losses to £5.5m for the six months to September 30, compared to a loss of £86.8m a year earlier.