Black cabs fell into black holes today as Manganese Bronze — maker of the iconic London taxi — said it had found accounting errors going back more than two years.
Days after the Spice Girls (pictured) wowed the Olympic closing ceremony audience from the top of multi-coloured London cabs the firm also warned that first-half losses will be “substantially higher” than last year’s.
Manganese shares crashed by a third falling 8.25p to 16.75p — their lowest for more than decade. The company said the accounting errors meant it had overstated its profits by £3.9 million — the equivalent of the on-the-road price of about 120 TX4 cabs.
It said the errors happened when it introduced a new IT system in August 2010 and transfers from the old system overstated some stocks and understated some liabilities. Manganese said that although first-half losses would be much higher than last year’s £905,000, it expects sales to pick up in the second half but could not say whether that meant it would hit City expectations.
It added that it has £2.8 million headroom on its borrowing facility and still has the support of its bankers and its 20% shareholder and partner Geely, the Chinese vehicle maker.
