Disclosure of “Errors in accounting for expense treatment from 2018”
SK Group’s 9.9% stake in January this year…the largest shareholder
A liquid hydrogen transport vehicle unveiled by Plug Power in the United States. Plug power provided
The share price of Plug Power, a US hydrogen energy company with SK Group’s largest shareholder, fell sharply in the New York Stock Market on the 16th (local time). In the case of regular market and after-hours trading, it fell by about 20% in one day. This is because errors in accounting books over the past two to three years have been revealed.
On that day, the share price of Plug Power in the NASDAQ market ended at $42.68 per share, down 8.14%. In the subsequent after-hours trading, it is falling by an additional around 11.7%. The company’s stock price returned to the level at the beginning of this year after returning the surge in the past.
The plunge in Plug Power’s stock price was directly caused by the statement that “an accounting error was found and the book is being rewritten”. The company announced that “the financial statements for the fiscal year 2018 and fiscal year 2019 as well as the latest quarter will need to be rewritten.” KPMG is in charge of the company’s accounting audit.
PlugPower explained that accounting problems were found in the classification of R&D expenses and the handling of losses in certain service contracts. The company said, “In a new and rapidly developing industry, the accounting preparation problem is complex and technical,” and “we have to make a number of critical judgments in applying the US GAAP.” He promised, “I will close this issue as soon as possible.”
The share price of Plug Power, a hydrogen company listed on the NASDAQ market, plunged due to an accounting error on the 16th (local time).
However, Plug Power emphasized that it expects that there will be no setbacks in achieving its previously stated sales targets such as $475 million this year, $750 million next year, and $1.7 billion in 2024.
Earlier, SK Corp. and SK E&S invested $800 million each through their overseas subsidiaries in January of this year to a special purpose corporation (SPC), and then purchased a 9.9% stake in Plug Power. Currently, the largest shareholder of Plug Power is SK Group.
Plug Power has been selected as the only global hydrogen fuel cell company that has all the value chains from production (upstream) to storage and transportation (middlestream) and supply (downstream). Because of this, the company’s stock price has soared 15 times over the past year.
As plugpower’s accounting errors are revealed, there are concerns that the sale of SPC shares, which SK Group is pursuing, may be disrupted.
New York = Correspondent Jae-Gil Cho [email protected]
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