All the troubles of ePrice
The CFO of ePrice has resigned. Here are the details and the situation on the staggering company active in the e-commerce sector
The bad news continues for ePrice, the company already in the e-commerce storm . Yesterday there was a heavy resignation at the top. Here are all the details and the point of the situation.
Appointed CFO of ePrice last July 29, Isabella Pedroni left her position, resigning. Pedroni was also the executive in charge of preparing the corporate accounting documents of the group active in the e-commerce sector. As stated in a note, the decision was made because "the overall corporate situation turned out to be very different from what was expected also in terms of time commitment foreseen such as to prevent continuing the relationship with the usual professionalism".
WHO GREETS EPRICE
ePrice, a holding listed on the MTA and active in the e-commerce market, provided an update on October 1st regarding the interest received in May from a leading Italian operator in the large-scale distribution sector, which was evaluating an operation investment in ePrice Operations, an operating company wholly owned by ePrice. At the end of the exclusivity period, the operator informed ePrice that it does not intend to continue with the negotiations relating to the possible execution of the transaction.
THE TRAMBUSTI OF EPRICE
The Board of ePrice – having acknowledged the communication on October 1 and recognizing that there are no conditions to exercise the delegation attributed by the shareholders' meeting to increase the share capital for a maximum amount of 10 million euros with the exclusion of the option right – has decided to evaluate as quickly as possible the best options to protect creditors, stakeholders and the activity carried out by the subsidiary ePrice Operations.
NO ACCOUNT REVIEW
"As for the situation at March 31, 2021, these accounting statements have been subjected to auditing", reads the report of the shareholders' meeting held last July, confirming the economic, financial and governance storm of the company.
COMMERCIAL DIFFICULTIES
Indeed, despite the capital increase in 2020, the difficulties continued in 2021, continuing to manifest themselves also in the shortage of parts in stock to meet customer demand, recently remarked Repubblica . “The results of the first months of the 2021 financial year – Eprice explained in June, today led by the president Claudio Calabi, known for being a corporate restructuring – were characterized by a shortage of products that is negatively affecting sales; the group, which has not yet acquired sufficient bargaining power vis-à-vis suppliers, given the ongoing restructuring activity, does not always manage to have the ability to improve the conditions and terms of its purchasing process ". Therefore, "despite the cost rationalization activity implemented by the management, which began in the last months of 2020 and is destined to intensify, the margins are still negative due to insufficient sales volumes conditioned, in turn, by the limited capacity of procurement ".
THE LENDERS IN EPRICE'S AMBASSES
Not surprisingly, there is the cash absorption recorded by Eprice in 2020 and at the beginning of 2021 following the decision of the shareholders' meeting of 27 April to approve the issue of a convertible bond loan of up to 10 million, "an essential element for the feasibility of the results of the actions envisaged in the industrial plan ", specified the e-commerce company itself. In this context – underlined Repubblica last June – the lender Intesa Sanpaolo, on the one hand, reached out to Eprice by granting "a further transitional renewal of the signature line up to 31 July 2021 in order to support the group in finalizing de industrial plan ". On the other hand, however, the Milanese bank invited the company to find financial and legal consultants to update the business plan, which is obviously no longer realistic, and to renegotiate the renewal of bank credit lines. Bpm and Bper also "made themselves available to evaluate the renewal of credit lines after evaluating the update of the industrial plan".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/tutti-i-guai-di-eprice/ on Wed, 13 Oct 2021 08:45:30 +0000.