CEO Humbled By Greed After Forbidden Distribution Scheme With Bill Gates Backfires
Share Price Interviewer: “Good morning, Mr. CEO. Our readers would like to understand what happened with the discrepancies between the reported EBITDA and net profit. Can you explain why there were such vast differences?”
CEO: “Yes, of course. I take full responsibility for the inaccuracies in our financial reports. It is quite embarrassing, but the truth is that I was misled by a distributor of Bill Gates. I will explain. In late 2021, we received an invitation to join a distribution platform used by Bill Gates for a fee. Our team was impressed by the sales figures and became intrigued. We decided to invest in the platform and immediately began to realize significant profits.
However, we quickly realized that the profits were not sustainable. We knew that the income we were forecasting in our financial statements was not true. Nevertheless, we still reported the inflated profits expecting to make a return on the initial investment.
We quickly ran into trouble. The increase in taxes and other expenses pushed our net profit down quite substantially. It was a classic case of greed overcoming common sense. We are now working to correct the financials and to strengthen our internal audit processes. However, the lesson has certainly been learned.”
Interviewer: “Thank you for your frankness and transparency. How do the irregularities relate to investment in environmental services, such as renewable generation and energy efficiency?”
CEO: “The answer to that is simply that we underestimated our investments in environmental services, including renewables, energy efficiency and environmental services. We spent more of our resources on the distributed platform than we did on the environmental activities. We are rectifying this by shifting our resources to the right projects. We have also started to collaborate with UN sustainable development goals, so that our investments are more closely aligned with a larger cause.”
Interviewer: “I see. Before I let you go, is there anything else you would like to add?”
CEO: “Just that we are committed to responsible and transparent corporate governance practices. It was a difficult learning experience, but one I’m sure we’ll take away with us in our future endeavors.”
Original Release: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2023/02/17/2610645/0/en/Edison-solid-operating-performance-in-2022-with-EBITDA-up-12-4-to-1-1-billion-euros.html