EML (ASX) Ann: Central Bank of Ireland Update

Originally posted by desire: ↑

from *********, article by Glenn Dyer

Shares in EML Payments crashed more than 20% for the second time in a couple of weeks on Monday on more bad news from Ireland.

On July 11, EML revealed the surprise departure of long time CEO, Tom Cregan and a new CEO in Emma Shand (a current director) without an explanation and down went the shares.

A fortnight later, EML revealed yesterday that the Irish central bank had not approved the company’s remediation programme for its European operations (PFS Card Services Ireland).

EML said the Central Bank of Ireland had identified what EML termed in the statement as, “shortcomings in components of the remediation programme, principally the sequencing and approach taken to the risk assessment of its distributors, corporates and customers.”

Down went the shares, dropping more than 22% to close at 93 cents on Monday. They touched a low of 92 cents in trading, which is a new low for the shares

EML also said in Monday’s statement to the ASX that the additional work, ordered by the Irish central bank, may result in further controls being embedded into its internal control framework.

While that worried investors, they also noticed a slippage in the timing of the new controls.

EML told the market that the adjustments to the remediation program will result in “assurance” being finalised “in 2023”, which much later than expected. Just when in 2023 wasn’t specified either.

PFS’s history with EML has been a short but tortured experience of just over two years. It has also been dangerous for the company’s share price.

The shares were trading at $5.72 in May 2021 when the problems with the Irish central bank first emerged. At yesterday’s close EML shares have lost more than 80% of their value in 14 months.

EML acquired the Ireland-based PFS in March 2020 after renegotiating the deal – the cost, $362 million.

The was supposed to push EML into the digital banking space, beef up its prepaid cards offerings and raise momentum.

But in May, 2021, the Irish Central Bank raised concerns about the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing risk and control framework at PFS’ card services business.

The central bank imposed restrictions on the growth of the business.

EML worked with the Irish authorities to sort out the situation and put in place a multimillion-dollar remediation designed program to address the Central Bank of Ireland’s (CBI) concerns related to perceived anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing risks.

April saw EM slash earnings guidance and warn of continued challenges in the troubled European operations. It downgraded earnings by 13% at the midpoint to $53.5 million, and also said full year revenue and profit would also be lower.

July 11 saw the mysterious loss of long-time CEO.

On top of all this, there’s a continuing class action concerning the level of disclosure of its Irish problems.

Shine Lawyers launched action in the Supreme Court of Victoria seeking compensation for shareholders who suffered losses after buying EML’s shares in late 2020 through to mid-May 2021.

That legal action continues to worry the market.

Expand

Regardless of how you look at it, the board of EML has to take action regarding the CBI issue rather than this ongoing malarkey of 2023/24/25 and on and on.. Pulling stumps and moving to another jurisdiction as some have suggested here will be both expensive and difficult.
The CBI is the cancer which could be the beginning of the end of what was once a great company.

No.	Vol.	Price($)
7	95347	70.0¢

No.

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Price($)

95347

70.0¢

Price($)	Vol.	No.
71.0¢	11377	1

Price($)

Vol.

No.

71.0¢

11377

No.	Vol.	Price($)
7	95347	0.700
3	43977	0.695
1	20000	0.690
1	14569	0.685
7	141640	0.680

No.

Vol.

Price($)

95347

0.700

43977

0.695

20000

0.690

14569

0.685

141640

0.680

Price($)	Vol.	No.
0.710	11377	1
0.715	38912	2
0.720	20651	2
0.730	8435	4
0.735	15853	4

Price($)

Vol.

No.

0.710

11377

0.715

38912

0.720

20651

0.730

8435

0.735

15853

(20min delay)
Last 70.5¢		Change 0.010(1.44%)		Mkt cap ! $264.4M

Open	High	Low	Value	Volume
70.5¢	73.0¢	69.5¢	$3.809M	5.387M

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