Magners cider maker and drinks distributor C&C Group has announced that its Chief Executive Patrick McMahon is stepping down after the discovery of accounting errors during its last three financial years when he was the company’s Chief Financial Officer.
The firm stated that corrections to the accounts would result in an aggregate underlying operating profit adjustment charge of €5m. The adjustments to its accounts include €1m in FY2023, €3m in FY2022, and €7m in FY2021.
McMahon has relinquished his role with immediate effect but will remain an employee until the end of September to facilitate a smooth transition.
Ralph Findlay, Chair of C&C’s board, has been appointed Group CEO “to ensure continuity of executive leadership” and is expected to remain in post for between 12 and 18 months. He is the former Chief Executive of Marston’s and joined C&C as Non-Executive Director and Chair in 2022.
“The adjustments have been made following detailed internal and external reviews of inventory and balance sheet reconciliations after discrepancies were notified to the audit committee earlier this year,” C&C said in a statement today.
“An independent accounting firm was appointed to investigate the relevant issues and to determine any potential financial impact and the time period over which the issues extended.”
The firm went on to say: “In addition to accounting mistakes and errors of judgement underlying these historic issues, it is clear from the reviews undertaken that there were failures in the group’s reporting framework and that in parts of the organisation, behaviours fell short of the levels of transparency demanded and required such that opportunities were missed to identify and appropriately address the relevant issues.”
C&C stated that further details relating to the underlying issues and the consequent actions and improvements to the controls and governance frameworks that have been and are being taken to ensure that there is no repetition of these issues would be set out in the group’s annual report, which is expected to be issued before the end of this month.
