LUXEMBOURG (dpa-AFX) - Ailing real estate group Adler Group has found an auditor for its annual financial statements after a long search. The audit firm Avega is to be appointed auditor for the years 2022 and 2023, the company announced in Luxembourg on Monday evening. The decision is to be taken by shareholders at a general meeting, which is reportedly expected to take place on Nov. 27. Avega had said it would accept the assignment. Three other auditing firms are reportedly to take over the audit of the subdivisions relevant to the group.

The news was met with a jump in share prices on the stock market. The share price rose 12.5 percent to 0.51 euros in early Tuesday trading. However, the stock has lost more than 97 percent of its value since mid-September 2021. Adler Group had come under the scrutiny of Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) about two years ago following allegations by short-seller Fraser Perring. Prior to that, the shares traded fairly consistently above 20 euros.

"We on the Board of Directors of Adler Group are extremely pleased that after a search of around 15 months and more than a hundred discussions, we can finally present a solution for the audit of our annual and consolidated financial statements," said Chairman of the Board Stefan Kirsten. He added that Adler had thus mastered the program begun in February 2022 to deal with the allegations of a short seller.

In April, a court had given the group the green light to restructure. At the end of June, the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office and the Federal Criminal Police Office searched offices of subsidiary Adler Real Estate on suspicion of false accounting, market manipulation and breach of trust.

The auditing firm KPMG had denied Adler the audit certificate for 2021. The Group had then published the figures last spring without an audit opinion. KPMG had rejected the appointment as auditor of the 2022 figures by a Berlin court. In 2021, Adler had posted a bottom-line loss of just under 1.2 billion euros.

The company not only has to deal with the allegations, but is also under pressure due to higher interest rates and a high financing requirement. The company has been thinning out its portfolio and selling real estate to reduce its debt./mne/stw/ngu/jha/