Timothy Coleman was the CFO of Redcentric (www.redcentricplc.com), a UK-based IT service provider and AIM-listed company. He issued false and misleading unaudited interim results in 2015 and 2016, materially overstating the company’s cash position – by £13.1m and £12.2m, respectively. Investors were misled into paying an “artificially inflated” share price. When the true position was revealed, shareholders suffered immediate losses in the value of their shares. A court sentenced him to five and a half years imprisonment, the FCA informed.
On 11 February 2022, the former CFO Timothy Coleman was found guilty in Southwark Crown Court on Friday on four charges of making false and misleading statements to the market. Coleman had inflated the cash position presented to the Redcentric board and to investors. Consequently, the share price of Redcentric shares, too, became artificially inflated. Investors paid more for the shares than they were actually worth. On 3 March 2022, the Southwark Crown Court sentenced Timothy Coleman to five and a half years prison time and disqualified him from being a director for ten years.
Estelle Croft, the firm’s former finance director, had already been sentenced to a 3-year prison term after she pleaded guilty to the charges. She was also ordered to pay £120,346 following confiscation proceedings.
Fraser Fisher, Redcentric’s former chief executive, was acquitted by the jury on all charges. So far, the AIM-listed company has paid back £9mn to the misled shareholders.
