DGAP-News

GRENKE AG: GRENKE provides an update on the status of Company-commissioned audits - Seite 3

Lease contract portfolio is audited through spot checks and incoming lessee payments are verified

KPMG is reconciling the payments received from lessees on July 1, 2020, August 1, 2020 and October 1, 2020 in the economically largest markets of Germany, Italy, France, Great Britain, Spain and Portugal. In addition to validating the incoming payments, this includes the posting and corresponding reconciliation of contract data record-keeping. For each reporting date, the incoming payments for the above-mentioned countries amounted to a total of EUR 353.0 million on July 1, 2020, EUR 59.6 million on August 1, 2020 and EUR 383.3 million on October 1, 2020.

At GRENKE, lease payments are generally made directly to GRENKE by the lessee, whereby for 90.2 percent of the lease contracts, the payments are collected directly by the GRENKE Consolidated Group by direct debit from the bank accounts of lease customers.

In addition, KPMG is analysing the existence of lease contracts initially by random sample on a case-by-case basis, and key contractual documents and selected payments within the sample are being examined. KPMG also contacted lessees directly to confirm the lease contracts and outstanding lease payments.

No business model or business organisation anomalies found to date

KPMG's review of the business organisation includes the handling of legal cases and customer objections, the know-your-customer rule (KYC), money laundering and fraud prevention. At the present time, no significant anomalies in the business model or business organisation are discernible. The number of legal cases is at a low level, both in terms of business volume and the number of transactions in the low-volume business.

Proof of cash and cash equivalents based on bank account balances completed

KPMG has also intensified its audits of proof of cash and cash equivalents far beyond what is required by law and supervisory regulations. An initial partial report on the early audit of bank and central bank balances as of June 30, 2020 and September 15, 2020 was finalised on October 14, 2020. In this report, KPMG confirmed 99.4 percent of the balances based on bank confirmations as of June 30, 2020 and 99.2 percent as of September 15, 2020.