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Shares in the payments group sank more than 20% and its
euro-denominated bonds expiring in 2024 fell 7.4 cents to 91.01
on the Financial Times report.
"Today's article by the Financial Times is a compilation of a
number of false and misleading allegations... which were already
fully refuted before," Wirecard said in a statement.
At 0940 GMT, the company's shares were down 17.6% after hitting
their lowest since April 24, making them the biggest faller on
Germany's DAX 30 and on track for their worst day since early
February.
The newspaper published documents including internal company
spreadsheets and related correspondence between senior members
of Wirecard's finance team, which, in an accompanying article,
it said appeared to indicate an effort to inflate sales and
profits at Wirecard's businesses in Dubai and Ireland, as well
as to potentially mislead EY, its tier-one auditor.
Wirecard said it was regrettable that the Financial Times chose
to publish "such an irresponsible" article.
The report comes after the paper published a series of stories
earlier this year alleging fraud and false accounting at
Wirecard's Singapore office and that a key Middle East unit was
not properly audited.
The company has already denied the FT's previous allegations,
saying that although Dubai-based subsidiary Card Systems was not
individually audited, its books had undergone higher-level
"full-scope" scrutiny by auditor EY.
(Reporting by Thyagaraju Adinarayan, Josephine Mason, Riham
Alkousaa and Thomas Seythal; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
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