Shares in listed legal business The Ince Group will be suspended at the start of next year’s trading after issues were raised by incoming auditors.

In an announcement to the London Stock Exchange yesterday, Ince said its new auditor BDO LLP has requested more time to prepare accounts ‘because of the historic and legacy accounting issues’ it has encountered.

In addition, the announcement went on, delays in China as a result of Covid-19 restrictions ‘continue to impact the audit process’. The Ince board says it is not aware of any material issues arising from the audit.

The company had announced in September that its full year accounts for the year ended 31 March 2022 would be published by 30 December following delays from the cumulative impact of the pandemic. It had been envisaged that Ince would also publish its half-year results for the first six months of 2022/23 on 30 December.

Neither deadline will be met. The company now says it expects to publish both sets of results by 31 January.

As a result, Ince shares will be suspended from trading from 3 January, when the market reopens, pending publication of these accounts.

Ince shares this morning plummeted by 23.5% to just 4.63p. This time last year they were trading at 35p.

The delay in publishing accounts marks the end of a dismal calendar year for the listed firm, which has been plagued by financial issues and a cyber attack in March which cost almost £5m.

In July, Ince shares dropped by 50% after it announced plans to raise around £7m by issuing new shares to avoid ‘financial difficulties’.

Chief executive Adrian Biles stepped down and resigned from the board, then Ince took a £7m hit selling its subsidiary business Arden Partners, which it had only bought in October 2021.