BDO to resign as auditor of Quintessentially

BDO has reportedly resigned as auditor of Quintessentially Travel and is also set to resign as auditor of the wider Quintessentially group, according to the Financial Times, after relations broke down.

The concierge company will now search for its third auditor in three years.

Last year, the company disclosed that it had made errors of more than £7mn in its accounts and paid £1.4mn of unlawful dividends to its shareholders.

Auditors also raised concerns “time after time” that the group lacked the “finance team and financial infrastructure” needed to prepare and file its accounts on time, the person said, adding that Quintessentially’s governance was “not up to scratch”.

However, Quintessentially said there were “no outstanding issues with the current finance team or indeed its governance following the earlier company restructuring and subsequent management changes of last year”.

Quintessentially group has not yet filed its accounts for the year to April 30 2020, which were due by April 2021. BDO was expected to remain in place until the next set of accounts has been signed off. The accounts for the year to April 2021 are also overdue.