ST Zhongqian ( China Dive Company Limited(300526) , SZ) announced on May 23 that the board of directors agreed to appoint Zeng Xiankang as the deputy general manager of the company. According to the resume, Zeng Xiankang previously worked in Tianjian Certified Public Accountants (special general partnership) (hereinafter referred to as Tianjian Institute), which is not related to the major shareholders of the listed company.
The reporter of the daily economic news noted that Zeng Xiankang and ST Zhongqian are actually “old acquaintances”. He is one of the signing accountants of the audit reports of the company’s 2019 and 2020 annual reports, and issued a standard unqualified opinion on the company’s 2019 annual report. However, the CSRC found that there were problems such as false records in China Dive Company Limited(300526) 2019 annual report; The investigation of Guangdong Securities Regulatory Bureau found that Zeng Xiankang and others had violations in the above audit process, so they issued a warning letter.
new deputy general manager was warned for violation of audit practice
According to the announcement of ST Zhongqian, the board of directors of the company deliberated and adopted the proposal on appointing the deputy general manager of the company. In order to meet the needs of the company’s operation and management, the board of directors agreed to appoint Zeng Xiankang as the deputy general manager of the company after being nominated by General Manager Gao zongbiao and reviewed by the nomination committee of the board of directors.
According to the resume, Zeng Xiankang was born in May 1988 and is a Chinese certified public accountant. Zeng Xiankang once served as auditor of Anhui Branch of Kaiyuan Xinde certified public accountants Co., Ltd; From January 2010 to may 2022, Zeng Xiankang successively served as auditor, project manager and department manager of Anhui Branch of Tianjian Institute.
The reporter of the daily economic news found through the website of the China Institute of certified public accountants that Zeng Xiankang had a college degree, his general practice qualification year was 2016, and the registration time of the certified public accountant certificate was 2017.
ST Zhongqian disclosed that Zeng Xiankang did not hold the company’s shares and did not work in shareholders and actual controllers holding more than 5% of the company’s shares; There is no relationship with shareholders holding more than 5% of the voting shares of the company, actual controllers and other directors, supervisors and senior officers of the company; Not punished by the CSRC and other relevant departments or disciplined by the stock exchange.
The reporter noted that Zeng Xiankang and ST Zhongqian were old acquaintances. He was one of the signing accountants of ST Zhongqian’s 2019 annual audit report and issued a “standard unqualified opinion” on the company’s annual report.
However, the CSRC later found that there were false records in the 2019 annual report of ST Zhongqian, which falsely increased the operating income by 372871 million yuan and the operating cost by 115428 million yuan, resulting in a falsely increased operating profit of 257443 million yuan, accounting for 62.08% of the total profits of the current period; Meanwhile, the company’s 2019 annual report did not disclose related party transactions as required.
In mid January this year, Guangdong securities regulatory bureau announced that it would issue warning letters to Tianjian office, Qiao Rulin and Zeng Xiankang. After inspecting the audit items of ST Zhongqian’s 2019 annual report, Guangdong Securities Regulatory Bureau found that Zeng Xiankang and others had problems such as inadequate implementation of risk identification and assessment procedures, inadequate implementation of control test procedures, and failure to maintain due professional doubts.
“If it’s just a warning, it doesn’t affect his qualification as a senior executive. He has previously served as a signing accountant of the company’s annual report, there is no legal obstacle.” Lawyer Wang Zhibin of Shanghai Minglun law firm told reporters.
the company’s annual report has been issued with non-standard opinions for two consecutive years
the business cooperation between ST Zhongqian and Tianjian Institute began in 2019. In December 2019, the listed company announced that it planned not to renew the appointment of Zhonghua Certified Public Accountants (special general partnership) (hereinafter referred to as Zhonghua Institute) to be responsible for the audit of the company’s annual report in 2019, but to appoint Tianjian Institute instead. After the audit of the company’s 2019 annual report conducted by Tianjian Institute, the listed company also said that it planned to re invest in Zhonghua Institute in December 2020.
However, by February 2021, ST Zhongqian said that Zhonghua office could not meet the needs of the company according to the original agreed time, and could not adjust and arrange personnel for the time being; In view of this, the company decided to appoint Tianjian Institute to audit the 2020 annual report.
This time, Tianjian Institute issued a non-standard opinion on ST Zhongqian’s 2020 annual report, and the signing accountants were Qiao Rulin and Zeng Xiankang. At that time, Tianjian Institute pointed out that there was no conclusive opinion on the investigation of listed companies filed by the CSRC, and it was impossible to judge the possible impact of the matters on the company’s financial statements and information phi; Part of the company’s income is lack of business documents, so it is unable to obtain sufficient and appropriate audit evidence for the authenticity of the income; At the same time, it has major doubts about the company’s sustainable operation ability.
In February this year, ST Zhongqian again announced the replacement of the annual audit organization, saying that Tianjian institute took the initiative to resign the audit of the company’s 2021 annual report. In response to the inquiry of Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Tianjian said that because it and Qiao Rulin and Zeng Xiankang were warned, ST Zhongqian hoped that Tianjian would arrange other certified public accountants who had not received administrative supervision measures or administrative penalties to be responsible for the annual report and subsequent audit, and Tianjian could not coordinate other personnel to follow up ST Zhongqian projects, so it chose to resign voluntarily.
Since then, ST Zhongqian appointed Asia Pacific (Group) accounting firm (special general partnership) (hereinafter referred to as Asia Pacific Institute) to be responsible for the audit of the company’s 2021 annual report. Asia Pacific exchange also issued non-standard audit opinions on the company’s 2021 annual report.
