Vitasoy issued a response to our report and accused us of releasing information that is factually wrong while passing misleading statements. We stand by our report. Every statement in the report is backed by hard, irrefutable evidence.
We are releasing the first piece of evidence: snapshots of Vitasoy’s Australia subsidiary’s financial report, audited by KPMG and publicly available from ASIC for a small fee of AUD 60. Placed beside the company’s annual reports, there is strong evidence to suggest that the company is misreporting its numbers to its investors.
As one can see below, the topline numbers match (red-lined) with a slight discrepancy probably due to exchange differences, but the numbers of the profits from operations (green-lined) are nowhere close to matching. How does the company explain the difference of AUD 6.5 million (16.3 m - 9.8 m)?
Source: Snapshot from onshore filing report (page 2)
Source: Snapshot from Vitasoy Annual Reports
One possible reason the company might hide behind is due to the treatment of assets and depreciation. Could Australia’s way of treating depreciation be different from Hong Kong resulting in a different operating profit number? This is also clearly not the case.
Compare the onshore filing asset (red-lined) and depreciation (green-lined) numbers, both shows a match. For example, depreciation & amortization in 2019 amounted to AUD 3.086 million in the onshore filing, which translates to roughly HKD 17.6 million as reported in the segment reporting numbers. Figures (red-lined) do roughly match for the total assets too.
Source: Snapshot from onshore filing report (page 19)
Source: Snapshot from Vitasoy Annual Report
Source: Snapshot from onshore filing report (page 4)
Oddly, all of the information we have provided are directly from the company’s own records. We did not fabricate any of this, nor put out misleading statements. We are merely pointing out the discrepancies. Companies, especially big ones, are often victims of hubris – they assume that no one checks facts that are hidden in plain sight. Instead of threatening to attack us, the company ought to do better and account for their actions.
Pride, as a wise man once said, comes before a fall.
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