Viceroy Research LLC is an international investigative financial research group registered in

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic states, South Atlantic regions of the United States. It borders Maryland to its south and west, Pennsylvania to its north, New Jersey ...

, United States. It was founded by a British

short seller In finance, being short in an asset means investing in such a way that the investor will profit if the market value of the asset falls. This is the opposite of the more common long position, where the investor will profit if the market value ...

Fraser John Perring together with Australian partners Aiden Lau and Gabriel Bernarde in 2016. Perring and Viceroy have stirred considerable media interest because of their reports on firms like

Wirecard Wirecard AG is an insolvent German payment processor and financial services provider whose former Chief executive officer, CEO, Chief operating officer, COO, two Board of directors, board members, and other executives have been arrested or other ...

. Of late, Viceroy has been known to bet against companies like

Tesla Tesla most commonly refers to: * Nikola Tesla (1856–1943), a Serbian-American electrical engineer and inventor * Tesla, Inc., an American electric vehicle and clean energy company, formerly Tesla Motors, Inc. * Tesla (unit) (symbol: T), the SI-d ...

, or Grenke. In 2021, the South African Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) has fined Viceroy R50 million for damaging remarks that the short-selling firm made about South Africa's Capitec Bank. In October 2021, it issued a damning report against Adler Real Estate for inflated valuations and undisclosed related party deals. KPMG probed the allegations and cleared the company of systemic fraud, but was unable to refute all the claims. In May 2022,

KPMG KPMG is a multinational professional services network, based in London, United Kingdom. As one of the Big Four accounting firms, along with Ernst & Young (EY), Deloitte, and PwC. KPMG is a network of firms in 145 countries with 275,288 emplo ...

quit its contract. Adler eventually was unable to repay its debt. In April 2023, it won approval in court, against the opposition of some bondholders, to suspend coupon payments and extend maturities of bonds due in 2024.

List of short attack reports

The following table displays the companies Viceroy Research has published reports about.

Controversies

Allegations

* On 16 March 2023, a question was raised in the UK's

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

Liam Byrne Liam Dominic Byrne (born 2 October 1970) is a British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North, previously Birmingham Ho ...

MP about Viceroy Research involvement in a short-selling attack on

Babcock International Babcock International Group plc is a British aerospace, defence and nuclear engineering services company based in London, England. It specialises in managing complex assets and infrastructure. Although the company has civil contracts, its main b ...

(involved with build and maintenance of UK's nuclear submarines) and Fraser John Perring's links and frequent trips to Moscow: *

"''Can we have a debate in Government time on the activities of short-selling attack group Viceroy Research and its leader Fraser Perring? I am told that it is working hand in glove with Boatman Capital, which launched the short-selling attack on Babcock International while it was overhauling our nuclear submarines. Mr Perring is a not infrequent visitor to Moscow, and is now targeting Home REIT, which provides homelessness services, including to homeless veterans. We must ensure that short-selling groups are not another weapon in Putin's arsenal. Where there are links between short-selling attack groups and the Kremlin, we need to know.''"

* In 2022, allegations were made against Viceroy Research as part of continued investigations into Viceroy's short attack against Capitec (for which Viceroy had already been fined for misleading reports) that Viceroy was paid R10M for production of its reports into Capitec.

Legal cases

Medical Properties Trust Medical Properties Trust, Inc., based in Birmingham, Alabama, is a real estate investment trust that invests in healthcare facilities subject to NNN leases. The company owns 403 properties in the United States, Australia, Colombia, Germany, Italy ...

, Inc. v. Viceroy Research LLC (2023): MPT filed a lawsuit against Viceroy Research in federal court, alleging that Viceroy had defamed the company by publishing false and misleading statements about its business practices. In June 2023, Medical Properties Trust won a preliminary ruling in its defamation lawsuit over an alleged “short and distort” scheme by Viceroy Research.

Regulatory investigations and fines

* In 2022, the FCA in the United Kingdom opened questions into Viceroy Research's relationship with Cayman Island hedge fund

Oasis Management Oasis Management Company (Oasis), is a hedge fund management firm headquartered in Hong Kong with additional offices in Tokyo and Austin, Texas. It is an activist investor, that has pushed for significant change at companies. In recent times, it ...

with regards to collusion and insider trading. * In 2021, the South African FSCA fined Viceroy Research R50M for false and misleading statements about the company Capitec in Viceroy's 2018 reports which caused a 23% share price drop.

References

External links

Viceroy Research website
Short selling Valuation (finance) {{US-company-stub