Viceroy Research, led by Fraser Perring, has set its sights on a new target: the Japanese solar panel manufacturer Abalance. Similar to their investigations into Wirecard, Grenke, and Adler Group, they claim to have uncovered irregularities and false statements. Following a significant 30% decline, the Abalance stock has since rebounded.
Viceroy released another update on 19 May 2023, leveling serious allegations against the company and its CEO. In it, the short-sellers highlight undisclosed related party transactions involving Abalance insiders. These transactions involve dummy shell companies and unconsolidated subsidiaries of VSUN, as revealed in the corporate filings.
- Allegedly, the Abalance management and their associates have been embezzling assets and money from Abalance shareholders.
- The Abalance CEO Ryu Junsei appears to be the center of this activities.
- Abalance subsidiary Fuji Solar, which accounts for over 90% of the group’s revenues with its subsidiary VSUN, appears to be audited by a co-owner of the Abalance subsidiary CSUN and not an independent third-party accounting firm.
- In their first report, Viceroy highlighted that despite fully consolidating VSUN, it is only entitled to approximately 43% of profits from its operations due to its holding structure. Abalance owns 51% of Fuji Solar, which in turn owns approximately 85% of VSUN.
Viceroy claims that the collected data are all sourced from public registries and are independently verifiable at the cost of a few dollars: