Wandisco’s co-founder and former CEO David Richards earned over £830k in his final year at the company, even as a major potential fraud took place at the firm, the Daily Mail reports.
Richards stepped down in April this year after the firm was forced to suspend trading of its shares and recall its 2022 results due to “significant, sophisticated and potentially fraudulent irregularities.”
An independent probe later found that a single senior sales employee was responsible for the errors at the Sheffield data firm, which meant more than £88m of false bookings were on its books.
Wandisco actually made £7.4m in revenue last year, rather than the £18m initially reported, while its bookings totalled £8.7m rather than the previously declared £97m.
Richards and finance boss Erik Miller both stepped down in the midst of the investigation, although the business has emphasised that their departures were unrelated to the scandal.
According to the Daily Mail’s finance website This is Money, Richards earned over £3.2m over his final five years at the helm, including a bonus of £450,000 last year on top of his base salary of £383,100.
WANdisco this month completed a £24m fundraise which it hopes will be the first step in returning its shares to trading on AIM.
