UK 19:39 Saturday, 24 October 2026
Breaking news and expert analysis on fast-moving AIM and LSE listed shares
Wandisco (WAND) already has an internally driven enquiry underway into the industrial scale fraud, c/o FRP Advisory. But marking your own homework is not good enough in a case like this and now the FCA had stepped in. For ex CEO Dave Richards and ex CFO Erik Miller, who were resigned on April 3 this is not good news.
Having boasted how putting his staff on a 4 day week had seen sales rocket, pompous Dave Richards MBE was forced to admit on March 9 that all of that sales growth at Wandisco (WAND) was bogus. Today the company confirm the scale of the fraud and Richard and CFO Erik Miller have walked the plank. Quote right: they were not involved in the fraud but the lack of oversight defies belief. Miller and Richards have gone because events suggest they are utterly incompetent.
Yesterday we learned of the mammoth fraud at Wandisco (WAND) which may well sink it. Bulls always pointed to huge forecast earnings but while the FCA always tells us that the past is no guide to the future it often is. We perma bears pointed to the actual numbers.
If I had a quid for every time I warned that shares in Wandisco (WAND) were at a bonkers valuation based on reported revenues, I’d be able to buy a season ticket at Wrexham. But today we discovered that most pf those reported revenues were made up and that the size of the emerging fraud was big enough to bankrupt a company which, at £13.10, was capitalised at £863 million. Now the shares have been suspended as investors face calamity in AIM’s biggest scandal for years.
I have a lot of time for Wandisco (WAND) boss David Richards and his tech business clearly has some traction. But the valuation is surely insane.
A week ago, Dave Richards - CEO of Wandisco (WAND) - was tweeting pictures of himself suited and booted, as well as his Mrs dressed up to the nines, as they headed to the residence of comrade Elizabeth Windsor. Today, he proudly waffles on about 2021 results from Wandisco. Only when you read the notes buried at the bottom, are you reminded of the dire realities. It could go bust, and will inevitably do a bailout placing - but is that enough? This is a train crash, and, rather than serving up nauseatingly misleading statements, Richards should admit to the facts.
A “Trading and business update” from ‘LiveData’ technology company WANdisco (WAND) emphasises that it “expects to report preliminary revenue for FY20 of at least $10.5m” and that an “expanding new business pipeline supports board expectations for FY21”... but what are those expectations and with revenue, of course, vanity, what does the bottom-line look like?...
From the FCA's spreadsheet of short positions required to be disclosed to it, the following shows the shorted AIM shares with positions from 2019 and thus far in 2020 (by net short position %, those in bold not on the list at the start of 2020) – and if this position has increased (red), reduced (green) or remained unchanged (black) since last week...
