One of the companies responsible for the planned Richmond Casino has now responded to the reports of some financial reporting irregularities and failure to comply with the Federal Government’s requirements.
Recently, information has surfaced that Urban One was officially notified that, last week, the Nasdaq stock market started a process to potentially delist the company as a result of some alleged irregularities in the operator’s financial reports. Last night, Alfred Liggins, CEO of the company, addressed the consequent community members’ concerns about the potential delisting of Urban One and the possible negative impact such a move may have on the future projects of the operator.
After some members of the community shared their worries during a meeting, Mr. Liggins noted that the company had some problems with their auditor and asked for a filing statements extension. The chief executive officer of Urban One further shared that the ongoing issues had nothing to do with the company’s revenue, performance, or profitability estimates and explained that the problem is associated with a classification of how the firm dealt with stock options. According to Liggins, this was simply a procedural issue that would be handled as quickly as possible and would not put the Richmond Casino project at risk.
At the meeting, which took place on October 4th, other community members asked Urban One’s CEO about the projected revenue of the planned establishments and the jobs it is expected to create.
Mr. Liggins addressed their questions, revealing that employees of the Richmond Casino are set to receive an average salary of $55,000 a year including benefits. He further shared that the yearly gaming tax revenue that is expected to be generated by the project amounts to $30 million, with $26 million set to go towards the decision of the Richmond City Council to invest in children.
Urban One Accused of Financial Reporting Irregularities
Apart from the ongoing issues that have seen Richmond voters still undecided about the fate of the proposed new casino venue in the city, the latest events involving Urban One have stolen the spotlight.
Financial reporting is required so that investors are given the chance to make the right decision for themselves when it comes to putting their money in certain companies. If the aforementioned suspicions of financial reporting irregularities are proven true, this can result in a full ban of the operator from the stock market.
The Federal Government has stringent financial reporting requirements in place but reports claim that the company, which was supposed to back the construction of the proposed Richmond Grand Resort and Casino along with Churchill Downs, failed to meet them. As mentioned above, the operator has recently received a delisting notice from Nasdaq – a move that, according to financial experts, is pretty much the end of the line of a series of regulatory failures over the past six or seven months.
Urban One received the first warning back in April 2023, after failing to meet the deadline for submitting its financial report for 2022. Then, in May 2023, the company failed to provide the financial data for the first three months of 2023. As a result, it received an extension until September 2023, but that deadline also passed without Urban One submitting the due reports. All of this has raised financial experts’ suspicions that there is something going on beneath the surface.
As explained by Urban One, the main reason that led to the unfortunate course of events is associated with some accounting errors linked to the operator’s investment in the Richmond casino project, along with some mistakes in regard to the timing of expense recognition of non-cash stock-based compensation.
