UK's MJ Hudson suspends finance chief after audit woes grow

(Refiles to clarify that the historical period mentioned in paragraph five refers to fiscal 2022)

(Reuters) -Britain's MJ Hudson Group on Monday suspended chief financial officer Peter Connell and warned it would not be able to complete its full-year audit by the end of December as more discrepancies in its financials came to light.

Connell had stepped down as director in October, days after the firm, which provides advisory, outsourcing and data services to asset managers, said it was unlikely to meet its profit forecast after making audit adjustments related to a major contract.

The 61-year-old Briton has been with MJ Hudson since its inception in 2010 and was scheduled to remain as the firm's CFO until it finalised and published its results for the 12 months ended June 30, 2022.

He is no longer performing the function of a CFO, a representative for MJ Hudson confirmed in an e-mail to Reuters. Connell's position was to be taken over by someone new after the completion of the audit, though the company has not given a time frame.

MJ Hudson said on Monday it was aware that additional issues were uncovered in the ongoing audit, including those related to reporting historical trading for fiscal 2022, which would delay the auditing process.

It added that the full impact of these discoveries was unclear, and said its shares were also suspended from trading.

Connell did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent through networking platform LinkedIn.

"The Board has appointed an external accounting and financial services firm to assist them in achieving the necessary clarity to enable the year-end FY 2022 reporting to be completed," MJ Hudson said in a statement.

It declined to comment further on the audit issue and said it would provide updates on its ongoing search for a new CFO "as soon as the company is in a position to do so".

(Reporting by Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi, Janane Venkatraman and Anil D'Silva)