Inconsistencies in the annual balance sheet put the Adler Group under pressure. The real estate group does not get a certificate from auditors, the group will write billions in losses in 2021. In order to flush money into the coffers again, several properties are to be sold.
The chairman of the board of directors of the real estate investor Adler Group, Stefan Kirsten, expects liquidity inflows of a good one billion euros from real estate transactions for the ailing group this year. “These are projects where we expect cash in the current year,” said Kirsten in an interview with the “Handelsblatt”. “Even if the one billion or 1.2 billion euros doesn’t come this year, we’ll still be cash-positive,” announced Kirsten. In that case, the sales would only be postponed. According to its own statements, the Adler Group still has around 27,000 apartments.
The manager currently sees no realistic scenario that would “push the group to the wall”. However, the 61-year-old also emphasized: “Without an audit opinion for the 2022 financial statements, we cannot speak of stability.” Most recently, the auditors from KPMG had refused the attestation for the 2021 annual financial statements.
The group is still looking for a new auditor for 2022, because KPMG is not available for this. In the first quarterly report for 2022, CEO Thierry Beaudemoulin assured that this corresponds to the actual circumstances. Without a certificate from an auditor, Kirsten complained, the Adler Group was cut off from the banking and capital markets.
For the group’s problem child, the project developer Consus, Kirsten held out the prospect of a debt-equity swap or a debt waiver. The Adler Group as a whole must “find a strategic niche” and “concentrate more on Berlin, or on development projects under adverse market conditions”.
The turbulence was also triggered by allegations by the Viceroy company of short seller Fraser Perring that Adler had deficiencies in the valuation of real estate, some of which had been artificially inflated. The auditors at KPMG Forensic had investigated the allegations and stated that they had not found any systematic fraud, but had found deficits – and complained about the lack of important information. The financial supervisory authority BaFin also looks into the books of the real estate investor. The Adler Group had previously sold apartments to reduce debt, which went to its competitor LEG Immobilien, among others.
