Media measurement and analytics company ComScore, known for tracking website metrics, has been curiously unable to track its own financial numbers for the better part of a year.
The firm was finally delisted from the Nasdaq exchange this morning after announcing it won’t meet a Feb. 23 deadline to file overdue financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission. By not filing an annual statement for 2015 or subsequent quarterly reports, ComScore failed to regain compliance with Nasdaq listing requirements.
The company said progress has been made toward completing the auditing process required for restatement, but the “magnitude of work” needed to review its accounting processes, especially in the area of revenue reporting, has made meeting the Feb. 23 deadline impossible.
The audits will review accounting judgments and estimates for transactions from 2013 through 2016.
“Although we are disappointed that we will not meet Nasdaq’s deadline, we have made significant progress towards the restatement and in strengthening our internal audit and compliance functions,” said co-founder and CEO Gian Fulgoni in a statement.
ComScore stock plunged after the announcement on Monday and began trading on the OTC markets Wednesday morning.
ComScore first learned about possible accounting improprieties in February of 2016, just days after releasing its fourth-quarter and full-year 2015 financial results. The company said it launched an internal investigation with the help of outside counsel, but hasn’t released further details.
The Wall Street Journal in August 2015 reported on ComScore’s controversial practice of recording non-monetary revenue – in this case, revenue that came from barter agreements tied to data-swapping deals with other companies that had no cash value. The reporting suggests executives may have manipulated the non-monetary revenue to inflate the company’s stock in order to hit company targets for executive bonuses.
The company has shuffled its top leadership and management since. Co-founder and former executive chairman Magid Abraham announced his resignation in July after serving with the company for 17 years.
“We will seek to relist our common stock on a major exchange as soon as we have met our filing requirements,” said CFO David Chemerow, “but as always we remain committed to continued communication with our shareholders.”
The company is planning to get all necessary filings submitted to the SEC and submit a restatement to a major exchange by the summer of 2017.