Word: chaumet
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...Circle K Corp., noting that the case received almost no public attention. In fact, the case was covered in the press and disclosed to investors in the Circle K prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. TIME also alleges that the purchase of slow-moving inventory from Chaumet, one of our operating companies, by another company, Lausanne Investments, was somehow improper. In fact, such bulk sales of stale merchandise for subsequent liquidation, the intention of which is to avoid disrupting the core business, is a standard practice in the jewelry industry. Both companies are owned by the same shareholders...
Lefevre also says Chaumet sold watches and jewelry at inflated prices to a shell company in Switzerland called Lausanne Investments; he says the sales allowed Chaumet to get poorly selling merchandise off its books without showing a loss. (Thousands of watches were later sold to dealers in the U.S. at a fraction of their inventory value, according to sources with direct knowledge of the transactions.) Chaumet's 1993 and 1994 financial statements, filed in a French commercial court, refer to the company's transactions with Lausanne but do not reveal who owned or controlled...
Lefevre says he protested what he regarded as improper accounting and left the company in early 1993. The remainder of his contract was paid off in full via a wire transfer from a bank in the Cayman Islands. Curiously, Lefevre notes, the money was wired not by Chaumet or even Investcorp but by Lausanne Investments...
Investcorp denies it ever misinformed Chaumet's shareholders about the company's performance and says they knew Chaumet lost money in 1992. The bank acknowledges that clients do not receive complete financial statements (unless they ask for them) but only "investment reports" showing operating income (before interest and taxes) rather than net income. Since clients agree to receive information in this form, says Investcorp, there is no problem. That ignores a critical factor: Chaumet's sales of inventory to Lausanne at inflated prices. If it had not been for those sales, Chaumet would have reported much higher losses...
...owns Lausanne Investments? "Investcorp does not own Lausanne Investments," a bank spokesman declared. When TIME pursued the issue, the spokesman changed his answer. Lausanne, he said, was owned by the same investors who own Chaumet--a group led by Investcorp. This means Investcorp controlled the seller and the buyer and used that control to slash Chaumet's losses. While there is nothing odd about a jeweler's disposing of excess stock this way, Lausanne's ownership is not disclosed in Chaumet's publicly filed financial statements, which means anyone who read them would get a distorted impression of the company...