Good morning, it's Paul here with the SCVR for Monday.

Today's report is now finished.

Today's agenda in small caps is;

Tristel (LON:TSTL) - Final results

Craneware (LON:CRW) - Q1 Trading update

Bioventix (LON:BVXP) - Results year ended 30 June 2020

Before I get onto that, here's the latest episode on the BooHoo saga;

Boohoo (LON:BOO)

(I hold)

The FT, and now other papers, are reporting that PWC is quitting as auditor of BooHoo, over reputation concerns. Obviously, if true, that's bound to have a negative impact on market sentiment, in the short term. Long term, of course, such issues are forgotten when forecast-beating results come out.

BOO has this morning issued a statement as follows;

boohoo, a leading online fashion retailer, notes recent press commentary with regards to its auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers ("PwC"). The Group would like to place on record that PwC is still the Group's auditor at this time. The Group's Audit Committee has recently launched a competitive tender process for the Group's audit, and will update shareholders at its conclusion. PwC signed an unqualified opinion on the Group's 2020 Financial Statements and having served as the Group's auditor since 2014, is not participating in this process.

I'm reluctant to speculate on this, and I'm sure everyone has their own interpretation of it, depending on your underlying view of the company/share. It's possible that some of the press reports, and the BOO statement, could both be true. Some press reports are saying that PWC has resigned (clearly false, because BOO has stated today that PWC remains its auditor at this time). Other press reports are saying that PWC intends to step down (in the future), which of course is entirely compatible with still being the auditor currently.

So it sounds like an orderly process to change auditors. But would BOO really have chosen this particular time, when it's under relentless fire in the press, to voluntarily change auditor? I don't know, but it seems implausible to me. Maybe the auditor said they don't want to carry on, but are happy to hand over in an orderly fashion? Who knows?

Does it matter? Short term, yes, clearly this further impacts already dented sentiment. In the long term it doesn't matter at all. The Telegraph points out that Sports Direct had problems retaining auditors, and had to move down…

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