SKELETONS are tumbling out of Botswana headquartered Choppies’ closet ahead of the completion at month-end of a forensic probe into the group, with multiple sources claiming the findings will rock the regional grocer to its core.

Sources privy to the ongoing probe claim that investigators are battling to untangle a complex web of ownerships and overlapping historical transactions involving senior executives that could have prejudiced the group and shareholders.

Choppies has been in crisis since last September when the Botswana and Johannesburg stock exchanges halted trading of its shares and requested clarification on the reasons for a delay in results for the year ended June 30, 2018.

In its last reported results, being for the year ended December 2017, Choppies posted after-tax profits only in Botswana and Zimbabwe, with the rest of the operations in other countries making losses.

Choppies’ subsequent clarification triggered an average 76 percent share price drop on both exchanges, after the group said its new auditors were reassessing historical figures related to business acquisitions, value of inventory, property and others.

The board has since suspended its CEO, Ramachandran Ottapathu, pending the outcome of forensic and legal probes into the group, which boasted revenues of about P9 billion in 2017 from operations in eight countries.

BusinessWeek has learnt that of major concern to the investigators is the issue of related-party transactions involving numerous registered companies that supply Choppies and the alleged ownership of some of these by group executives and their associates.

Affected executives allegedly did not disclose their stakes in the companies, giving rise to a host of suspected corporate governance failures and misconduct.

The ownerships are reportedly hidden beneath layers of company registrations and proxies that investigators have been battling to unravel.State media