Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) (688086. SH) recently announced that the company was investigated by the China Securities Regulatory Commission on suspicion of illegal information disclosure.
The reporter of the science and Innovation Board daily noted that as early as after Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) was listed, the first inquiry letter was received, and the market continued to discuss whether it was suspected of financial fraud. “Since the pilot registration system of the science and innovation board in 2019, the ‘audit required’ of accounting documents has gradually become the basic requirement of information disclosure in the securities market, in which the responsibility of Accountants is prominent,” a legal person said. “The CSRC chooses to file a case for investigation or show that it has mastered certain facts, but it should not make a conclusion before the final result comes out. There are still many possibilities of violation of the letter phi.”.
The concerns of audit institutions have also been the focus of supervision since then, one of which is the supplier . After listing, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) paid a large amount of advance payment to a number of suppliers in 2020, an overall increase of 250.50% over the previous year. The reply from Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) showed that many of the suppliers cooperated for the first time, and after that, the progress of many projects was not smooth.
second, in terms of downstream customers . Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) adjusted its business model immediately after listing. As a result, the accounts receivable aged more than one year at the end of 2020 increased significantly compared with the previous year, and there were many joint-stock companies among the debtors; At the same time, the business structure and revenue capacity have also changed imperceptibly.
As early as April 30, 2021, the Shanghai Stock Exchange issued an inquiry letter to Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) on the opinions of the audit institution, requiring it to make supplementary disclosure. After that, the Shanghai Stock Exchange also successively issued inquiry letters on the information disclosure in the Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) 2020 annual report and the first half of 2021 financial report.
defects in internal control and information phi of large advance payment
Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) was listed in February 2020. The company’s 2020 annual report shows that the prepayment in that year was as high as 136 million yuan, that is, the prepayment increased by 252.50% year-on-year less than one year after listing. Including 78.2344 million yuan of technology development expenses and 42.0719 million yuan of equipment prepayment.
Lixin certified public accountants believes that Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) has not provided sufficient data and information about the above prepayments and the business reasons of entrusted R & D transactions, so it is impossible to obtain sufficient and appropriate audit evidence on the commercial essence of the above prepayments, entrusted R & D expenses and operating costs.
From the perspective of regulatory inquiry, for the abnormal surge of advance payment, at the level of audit and letter Phi compliance, the company needs to clarify the commercial essence of cooperation with suppliers and exclude the situation that the two sides have related relationships or special interest arrangements.
In 2020, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) signed cooperation agreements with 9 software suppliers in order to jointly participate in two government projects of “orange heart online” and Guangmei Industrial Park smart Park in Xinfeng County, Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province with China Unicom and Telecom. However, until March 2021, the above projects have not made clear progress.
So according to Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) , it decided to negotiate with 9 suppliers to terminate the contract and recover the payment for goods. When the negotiation failed, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) selected and introduced two companies as new partners of the above-mentioned government projects, which was equivalent to finding the receiver of the nine suppliers and finally receiving a refund from the supplier.
In addition, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) at the end of 2020, more than 40 million equipment payments were prepaid in the form of commercial paper – that is, two 100g second-hand production lines. Its procurement, establishment and production, like technology development and procurement, are not progressing smoothly.
As the internal decision-making process of AVIC Yuming, the seller of the production line, exceeded expectations, and the transformation of the original equipment manufacturer singulus, Germany, was slow due to the repeated impact of the epidemic, resulting in the delivery of two 100g production lines lagging behind the contract.
The supplier of the production line is Zhongjie Weiye, who has established a cooperative relationship with Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) before. However Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) disclosed that during this period, it also handled the import and export affairs and contract signing arranged by Shengli machinery, Guangdong Deli and other companies, and the relevant funds were paid by Zhongjie Weiye. At present, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) has paid 65% of the advance payment for one 100g second-hand production line and only part of the advance payment for the other 100g second-hand production line according to the agreement.
According to Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) , the nine suppliers involved in the 78.2344 million yuan advance payment for technology development at the end of 2020 are the first cooperation, and there are multiple related relationships among the nine suppliers. Among them, three companies, Anhui Baoxin, Anhui Xunhu and Anhui Renhao, cooperated with Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) for the first time and carried out large transactions. They jumped into the top five suppliers of Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) software in the financial report of 2020.
It is worth noting that the technology development fees prepaid to the above nine suppliers and the prepayment of equipment for new production lines are paid in full to the suppliers in the form of commercial bills. The balance of development bills payable from 2020 to 2020 is RMB 1.1 billion.
Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) frankly, in addition to the poor progress of the project, the company chose to terminate the contract with 9 suppliers. Another reason is that the acceptance bill corresponding to the above purchase advance payment is about to expire. In other words, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) once fell into the dilemma that the project was stagnant and it was difficult to obtain project sales revenue and the acceptance bill was about to expire after prepaying the technology development cost.
Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) in the reply to the inquiry, the company admitted that there were some weak defects in the implementation of the internal control system of the above prepayment payment, including: the approval of prepayment was not linked to the project progress or procurement progress for appropriate checks and balances, resulting in large prepayment.
sudden changes in multiple business data
Starting from 2019, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) business model will gradually explore the mixed reform with local high-quality state-owned enterprises, and expand the local government disaster preparedness center project by means of equity participation or holding. In this mode, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) customers have changed from the previous system integrators, third-party data center operators, telecom operators and end customers to joint-stock companies or related parties to sell optical storage devices and solutions.
In 2020 alone, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) will add three joint-stock companies and customers; In the first half of 2021, several data center projects in Yunnan, Shijiazhuang, Shenshan, Haikou, etc. were developed. Due to the continuous growth of its business and the need to constantly expand new customer base, the business of joint-stock companies may be further expanded in the future.
Among the customers of Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) , there are also related situations where multiple customers are directly or indirectly held by the same shareholder. Haikou Ruihua Yuanxing Technology Co., Ltd. is the second largest customer in Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) 2020. According to the industrial and commercial information, Guangzhou DAHAO Enterprise Management Co., Ltd. indirectly holds a certain equity. In addition, it also directly or indirectly holds a certain equity of four Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) joint-stock companies, including several lotus Zichen, Amethyst Tianzhong, earth Amethyst and Zhonghong Amethyst.
It is worth noting that among the top ten debtors of accounts receivable at the end of 2020, three are related parties of Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) , including the above-mentioned several lotus Zichen and Zijing Tianzhong.
According to the 2020 annual report, the book balance of accounts receivable at the end of the period was 684 million yuan and the balance of bad debt provision was 64.8598 million yuan. Among them, the balance of accounts receivable aged more than one year was 283 million yuan, accounting for 41.40%, a significant increase over the previous year. The semi annual report of 2021 further shows that the large amount of accounts receivable from participating companies and related parties at the end of the period Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) has not been recovered. In the third round of inquiry issued by Shanghai Stock Exchange, it is required to explain whether the joint-stock company has the ability to repay accounts receivable.
With the adjustment of Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) business model after listing, its business structure and revenue capacity have also changed significantly.
Taking the first half of 2021 as an example, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) technology solution business composition decreased to 13.78% from 63.88% in the same period of last year, mainly due to the influence of seasonal factors, project system characteristics, customer development and other factors in enterprise market business. In 2020, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) claimed that due to customized services to enterprise customers, there were certain differences in the pricing of outsourced products and services of different projects, and the gross profit margin of technical solutions business decreased by 10.74% compared with the previous year.
The changes of several business indicators finally ushered in a big dive in the performance of Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) 2021. On January 29, 2022, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) released the performance forecast, which said that the net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company is expected to be 6.5 million yuan to 9.75 million yuan in 2021, a decrease of 97.2764 million yuan to 94.0264 million yuan compared with the same period of the previous year.
In addition, there are doubts about Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) customers. Guangdong Weilan data information Co., Ltd., its fourth largest customer in 2020, is located on different floors of the same office building with Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) subsidiary Guangzhou Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) Technology Co., Ltd. In 2019, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) sold more than 50 million yuan of storage equipment to blue data and its subsidiary Beidou education.
more than 40 listed companies of A-Shares were filed for investigation due to letter Phi last year
According to xingkuang data, in 2021, more than 40 A-share listed companies were filed for investigation by the CSRC due to violations of letter phi. At present, most cases are still in the investigation stage and are inconclusive.
However, according to the handling of cases in 2020 released by the CSRC, there were 84 new cases of violation of Xinxin pHi in 2020, of which 33 were related to financial fraud. In the statement, the CSRC stressed that the financial fraud of A-share listed companies shows such a trend: firstly, the crime field extends beyond IPO, continuous information disclosure, M & A and reorganization, secondly, the motivation and means of fraud are more complex, and there is the interweaving of financial fraud and illegal guarantee.
Many industry experts interviewed by the reporter of Kechuang board daily believe that the Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) case is full of doubts. The first is to pay the full advance payment for the first cooperation with many suppliers. Lu Xiaohui, an expert of whale platform think tank, a partner of Heheng consulting and a certified public accountant, said that this is obviously not in line with business logic. “Usually, only part of the advance payment should be paid, and then it should be paid in batches according to the progress, especially for the first cooperation.”.
Liu Siqi, a young scholar at the University of Manchester, said that under the premise of uncertainty risks in the supplier contract, paying in advance for technology development fees and equipment may lead to lending funds to related suppliers, which may damage the interests of minority shareholders.
In addition to exposing the problems existing in the internal control of enterprises, Ma Baobao, an expert of whale platform think tank and a lawyer of Xi’an Hongrui law firm, said that the surge in advance payment is generally a manifestation of the decline of an enterprise’s credit level and even its operating ability. The actual situation of an enterprise is usually more accurate in the upstream and downstream of the industry.
After the change of business model, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) downstream customers have added a number of joint-stock companies. According to the situation of constituting related parties of listed companies listed in 15.1 (14) of Chapter 15 of the rules of Shanghai Stock Exchange, the above transactions do not constitute related transactions specified in the rules. Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) said that it chose to list the customers of participating companies as other related parties in the 2020 annual report only from the perspective of prudence under the accounting standards.
Ma Baobao said that to expand local government projects in the form of joint-stock companies, generally speaking, the purpose is to solve the problem of being disadvantaged in the bidding of government projects due to the limitation of enterprise scale and reputation. Therefore, enterprises will choose to provide technology into a company and bind with the resource side.
However, Lu Xiaohui, a certified public accountant, believes that the actual operation ability and payment ability of related parties as customers in the incident are in doubt, and there is also the suspicion of fictitious income through related parties, which will become the focus of the CSRC’s investigation.
“For investors, many measures have been ‘Minglei’ signals.”. Lu Xiaohui said that according to the new delisting regulations, Amethystum Storage Technology Co.Ltd(688086) does not meet the delisting requirements from the perspective of financial indicators – losses for two consecutive years and income less than 100 million. However, if financial fraud is found in the investigation, delisting may still be triggered according to the severity.
