CEO Admits to Embarrassing Financial Scam After Vegas Splurge
are very pleased that our breath analyzer, the Breathtest-1000, is ready for commercialization, following the successful testing of breath samples for infectious disease biomarkers. The Breathtest-1000 uses our highly ruggedized MAS proton transfer and gives medical professionals an inexpensive test that can be used to evaluate patient health quickly and accurately.”
Interviewer: Thank you for joining us today. Could you tell us what happened in terms of Astrotech’s second quarter of fiscal year 2023 and your financials?
CEO: Certainly. Astrotech reported our financial results for its second quarter of fiscal year 2023, which ended December 31, 2022. While the year to date revenue totaled $301 thousand, our gross margin increased to 38%, which was 111% higher than the prior fiscal year due to our recurring maintenance services and consumables sales. We launched the AgLAB 1000-D2 and the Maximum Value Processing (D2-MVP) control systems and our BreathTech subsidiary determined that, based on data collected from library development, the BreathTest-1000 lung disease screening instrument can clearly distinguish between infected and healthy breath samples. We also regained compliance with minimum bid price requirement of $1.00 for a share for continued listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market.
Interviewer: Following the report of your financials, we’ve been informed that you have been lying about two important points regarding the report. What can you tell us about this?
CEO: I deeply regret my actions and apologize to my investors and colleagues. The truth is that we were not as successful as we had initially stated we were in terms of our gross margins and revenue. Our gross margins were actually only 20%, not 38%, and our revenue was actually $200 thousand, not $301 thousand. We did this to try and present ourselves in a more favorable light than what was actually the case. I take full responsibility for this, and more importantly, the embarrassment that followed.
A few months ago, I took a trip to Vegas with some of our staff members and upon arriving they had surprised me with two tickets to a show. With the tickets in hand, I thought that it would be a great idea to splurge on a bottle of champagne and enjoy the show. Unfortunately, our check for the bottle came out to a whopping $2,000 and I didn’t realize it since I was too caught up with the excitement. The $2,000 was out of our marketing budget, which was the same budget that I had mentioned earlier when I lied about our financials. The embarrassment came when I had to admit that I included the $2,000 bill in our financial report inadvertently.
Original Release: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/02/13/2606595/0/en/Astrotech-Reports-Second-Quarter-of-Fiscal-Year-2023-Financial-Results.html