Ahold unearths fraud worth $29 million

Months after uncovering accounting fraud at one of its US subsidiaries, food retailing company Ahold said it has found an additional $29 million in accounting errors in other American operations, and will miss a June 30 deadline to finish auditing its books for 2002. Ahold, the world’s third-largest retailer, has been struggling to come up with accurate accounts since the company’s announcement in February that US Foodservice had overstated profits by hundreds of millions of dollars in 2000-2002. Preliminary results of an internal probe into US Foodservice released May 8 found it overstated profits by $880 million over three years. The company said other probes have now uncovered an additional $29 million in accounting irregularities, ‘principally’ at its tops markets subsidiary in the US. More than half Ahold’s sales are in the U, where it owns various grocery chains, including Tops, Stop & Shop and Bruno’s, as well as US Foodservice, which delivers food to hotels, schools and restaurants. Ahold said probes into other units had taken longer than expected, and its external accountant Deloitte & Touche was 4-6 weeks behind schedule as a result.

Ahold pledged to have the remaining probes finished within two weeks. (PTI)