Petrus Advisers has clarified its stance on the future leadership of Temenos, of which it is a principal stakeholder, after accusations were made by fellow investor Hindenburg Research last week.
An activist investment firm, Hindenburg released a report last week following a four-month investigation into Geneva-based banking platform Temenos. The firm claimed to have uncovered hallmarks of manipulated earnings and major accounting irregularities.
Responding to the accusations last week, Temenos – which experienced a decline in share value in the aftermath of the report – accused Hindenburg of “factual inaccuracies and analytical errors” and “false and misleading allegations”.
These accusations include claims of back-dating of contracts, potential pulling forward of licence deals at discounts and usage of R&D funds for non-R&D purposes.
In its own response to Hindenburg’s accusations, Petrus agreed with its fellow investor’s assessment that Temenos interim CEO, Andreas Andreades, should vacate his position.
However, the company quipped that Hindenburg “seems to have had a bad Valentine’s Day and vented their mood on Temenos the next day”, whilst also finding inconsistencies in the report’s reliance on former Temenos stakeholders.
“We very much agree with Hindenburg that Andreas Andreades must finally leave Temenos but think it requires less text to express it,” an open letter from Petrus Managing Partner, Klaus Umek, and Partner, Till Hufnagel, explained.
“Most of the points alleged by Hindenburg are based on hearsay talk from former disgruntled Temenos executives.”
In Petrus’ view, Temenos has suffered from poorly executed M&A decisions coupled with neglecting technological investment, client satisfaction and staff.
These developments led to the company calling for Temenos’ to replace Andreas Andreades and Max Chuard, the latter of whom worked as CEO before being removed from his role in January 2023 to be replaced by the former.
Petrus’ letter closed by calling on Temenos to replace Andreades with a new interim or permanent CEO and to address the ‘mostly hearsay based’ allegations of Hindenburg’s report.
