On February 22, 2023, Jehoshaphat Research published a report alleging that the Company has been “inflating its profits dramatically for over a decade with manipulative accounting.” Specifically, Jehoshaphat Research accuses the Company of deceptively managing costs “[b]y stuffing billions of dollars’ worth of routine expenses into various asset accounts, year after year;” an accounting trick referred to as “snowballing.” Jehoshaphat Research observes that every year, Techtronic disposes of large amounts of tangible assets, such as Property, Plant & Equipment, at near-total losses on sale, signifying that the Company is capitalizing routine business expenses into assets. The report also accused Techtronic of ignoring its own accounting policy on bad debt provisions in order to delay expenses.
On this news, Techtronic’s stock price fell $3.55 per share, or 5.7%, to close at $58.70 per share on February 22, 2023.