IMMOFINANZ: Correction to a media article with comments on an audit report by the Austrian Financial Reporting Enforcement Panel (AFREP)

A recent media report published on www.trend.at (“Signa Immobilien: René Benkos beinharter Machtkampf“) includes a reference to an apparent “report by the Austrian Financial Reporting Enforcement Panel (AFREP) to the Austrian Financial Market Authority on problems with Immofinanz’s financial statements“. In the following, IMMOFINANZ would like to correctly state the relevant facts:

The comments in the article do not correctly reflect the specifics of the audit report issued by the AFREP at the end of December 2017. The correct fact is that the AFREP carried out a routine review in 2017. According to the viewpoint of the AFREP, the shares in CA Immobilien Anlagen AG should have been accounted for through full consolidation instead of at equity in the half-year financial statements as of 31 October 2016. Full consolidation would have had positive effects on the assets as well as the earnings of the IMMOFINANZ Group. In contrast to the opinion of the AFREP and supported by the opinions of external experts, IMMOFINANZ believes the applied accounting treatment complies in full with the applicable rules. IMMOFINANZ has therefore stated that it does not agree with this conclusion. The results of the AFREP audit are currently under review by the Austrian Financial Market Authority.