Kraft Heinz says employee misconduct led it to restate earnings for 2016 and 2017

Kraft Heinz will restate more than two years of financial results after some of its employees engaged in misconduct, the company disclosed early Monday. In a filing with Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said that an internal investigation revealed that employees fabricated a number of transactions related to suppliers and procurement. The company said it would restate full-year and quarterly results for 2016 and 2017 and the first three quarters of 2018. It has yet to file its 2018 annual report. And the delay in the filing of the annual report means it will be late announcing its first-quarter results. The company said it did not believe the amount of the restatement was “quantitatively material” to its finances. Still, the restatements will total about $208 million. The company is 27% owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA), which had its annual meeting in Omaha this past weekend. “The company has my confidence,” Buffett said in an interview on CNBC Monday. He admitted that Berkshire paid too much for Kraft, which it purchased for $28 billion and merged with Heinz to form Kraft Heinz in 2015. The combined company is only worth about $40 billion today. “I’ve paid too much for a lot of things. Time usually works it out, but it means that capital could have been better deployed in other areas,” he said. “You can always pay too much for a business … and I’ve done it with stocks many times.” Kraft Heinz had already disclosed in February that the SEC was investigating its accounting, and it had received a subpoena from the regulator related to its accounting policies, procedures, and internal controls. The earnings restatement was not a surprise. The company announced the SEC probe at the time the company reported fourth-quarter results, which included a writedown of the value of its Kraft and Oscar Mayer brands by $15 billion, sparking a $12.6 billion loss in the period. Shares of Kraft Heinz (KHC) were little changed in early trading Monday. – CNN Business’ Brittany Gibson contributed to this report

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Kraft Heinz to restate earnings for 2016 and 2017 after employees faked numbers