ComScore Gains after Probe Led It to Restate 3 Years of Results

(Bloomberg) ComScore Inc., which replaced its top officers last month amid an investigation into its accounting practices, climbed a day after restating three years of financial results to reflect lower sales than originally reported.

Shares of the Internet and entertainment research firm gained as much as 4.7 percent to $31.50 and rose to $30.96 at 9:52 a.m. in New York. They had declined 27 percent this year through Thursday.

The audit committee couldn’t support the prior accounting for non-monetary transactions reported from 2013 to 2015, the company said Thursday in a filing. So the company reversed those transactions and restated, showing millions of dollars in less revenue. Questionable accounting had added about $30 million to the company’s 2015 sales, originally reported as $368.8 million. As a result, the company’s loss from operations quadrupled to $10.8 million that year from the $2.65 million reported.

“The company has concluded that revenue and expenses associated with all nonmonetary transactions during the periods identified above should be reversed,” Reston, Virginia-based ComScore said in the filing.
On a conference call Friday, the company said there may be additional adjustments.

ComScore said on Aug. 10 that it was replacing Chief Executive Officer Serge Matta and Chief Financial Officer Melvin Wesley III. Co-founder Gian Fulgoni took over as CEO from Matta, who was made executive vice chairman. Chief Revenue Officer David Chemerow took over as CFO.

The company, which acquired Rentrak Corp. in February in an $800 million stock swap, disclosed the accounting investigation in February.

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