C B Mouli & Associates, the auditors of the crisis-ridden Deccan Chronicle Holdings Ltd (DCHL), the Indian company which publishes the English daily Deccan Chronicle, have raised serious doubts over the company’s ability to continue trading. Their suspicions were presented in the audited report of DCHL on Thursday 28 March 2013.
Some of the company’s lenders and creditors filed a winding up petition against the company, “pending the adjustment of intangible assets under development – brand and capital work in progress – advance for the purchase of property and other related factors”.
In their report, the auditors made several key observations concerning the manner in which the financial statements of the company have been prepared, lack of clarity on assets transferred to lenders pending settlement of dues with them and the inability of the company’s management to furnish details regarding outstanding loan liability.
DCHL publishes newspapers under four brands – Deccan Chronicle, Andhra Bhoomi, Financial Chronicle and The Asian Age. However, the trademarks of all these newspapers were mortgaged with IDBI Bank and after failure to recover its payments from the company, the Bank has recently been trying to sell them in a bid to recover its dues.
In a bid to stabilise the company, they plan to de-merge its print business and restructure its debt.