(Bloomberg) -- Wirecard AG’s Chief Executive Officer Markus Braun has resigned after the German payments company disclosed 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) of missing cash.
James Freis has been appointed interim CEO, Wirecard said in a statement Friday. Freis was appointed as a member of the management board on Thursday.
Braun’s exit comes after a catastrophic few days for Wirecard, which suffered a share price collapse after the two Asian banks that were supposed to be holding the missing cash denied any business relationship with the company.
Wirecard is currently facing a potential cash crunch. The company warned Thursday that loans of up to 2 billion euros could be terminated if its audited annual report is not published on Friday. Analysts at Morgan Stanley estimated that Wirecard has available cash of around 220 million euros, if it cannot locate the missing $2.1 billion.
Named CEO in 2002, Braun has put tens of millions of euros of his own funds into the firm. The value of his 7% stake, which once made him a paper billionaire, has dwindled in the course of the rout.
His exit follows statements by BDO Unibank Inc., the Philippines’ largest bank by assets, and the Bank of the Philippine Islands, which said on Friday that Wirecard isn’t a client.
“It was a rogue employee who falsified documents and forged the signatures of our officers,” BDO Unibank Chief Executive Officer Nestor Tan said in a mobile phone message. “Wirecard is not even a depositor -- we have no relationship with them”.
The Bank of the Philippine Islands said in a separate statement that Wirecard isn’t a client and it continues to investigate the issue.
Wirecard shares plunged as much as 52% in Frankfurt on Friday. The selloff in Wirecard’s bonds also intensified, with the company’s 500 million-euro bonds maturing in 2024 falling a further 14 cents to trade at 24 cents. Its 900 million euros of convertible bonds are now indicated at less than 10 cents on the euro.
Wirecard was worth 24.6 billion euros in September 2018 when it entered Germany’s Dax index. It is currently valued at about 2.4 billion euros.
The denials from BDO and BPI follow a statement on Thursday from Wirecard, which claimed that auditor Ernst & Young couldn’t confirm the location of the missing cash that was supposed to be held in Asian banks and reported that “spurious balance confirmations” had been provided.
The Philippine central bank said it’s aware of reports about German payments company Wirecard AG and is investigating the matter.
Wirecard spokespeople did not immediately return calls and emails for comment.
Historic Slump
The crisis has engulfed Wirecard in recent days. The payments company suffered one of the worst stock slumps in the history of Germany’s benchmark index after warning that as much as 2 billion euros in loans could be called due if its audited annual report, delayed for the fourth time, was not published by June 19.
German and Chinese banks are most exposed to the company’s two existing revolving facilities worth almost 2.5 billion euros, according to Bloomberg data. Ten of the 18 existing lenders are committed to both revolvers including Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., Bank of China Ltd., Commerzbank AG and Deutsche Bank AG.
Banks typically take and hold their revolving credit facilities’ commitments for high-grade companies which means most of Wirecard’s lenders may not have offloaded their lending risks in the company.
German financial markets regulator BaFin said it is also examining Wirecard’s disclosure on Thursday as part of its investigation into whether the company violated rules against market manipulation, according to a spokeswoman.
BaFin has three investigations of Wirecard running: whether the company manipulated markets with its disclosures, whether Braun’s stock purchase ahead of the planned publication of the company’s annual report violated market abuse roles and whether the company and its management are fit to be the owners of a bank. BaFin could use the last point as a lever to oust key executives, although the final decision rests with the European Central Bank.
Fraud Claims
Braun has painted the company as a potential victim. The former CEO had been resisting calls to resign and aggressively defending the company against accusations of accounting fraud, led by a series of articles in the Financial Times.