Infranor finance head admits stealing company funds

Infranor has commented that its operational activities will not be affected by the theft Keystone

The chief financial officer of the Infranor group in Zurich has admitted misappropriating SFr7 million ($4.68 million) of the firm's money.

Peter Jordi, who has been at the industrial automation company since 1987, has been fired with immediate effect, after giving himself up voluntarily to the authorities.

Jordi is said to have stolen the money over the course of the past eight years and lost it on stocks and shares.

District prosecutor

The case is now in the hands of Zurich’s district prosecutor. An independent accounting company has been brought in to examine the extent of the damage caused to Infranor and to look at internal controls at the firm.

The company’s chief executive, Martin Bölsterli, said the damage could exceed the SFr7 million admitted by Jordi. However, he said that there were no initial indications that this was the case.

Bölsterli added that he was now waiting for a report from the Visura accounting company, responsible for looking over Infranor’s books.

Operations not affected

He commented that according to early indications, the group’s operational activities would not be affected by the theft.

But Bölsterli added that the accounts for the business year 2001/2002 would probably be affected by a special charge of SFr5 million.

The Infranor group reported a loss of SFr3.4 million for the first nine months of its business year, compared with a profit of SFr4.25 million for the previous year. Turnover fell by 17 per cent to SFr51.5 million.

Blaming the “recessive economy development” since the beginning of its business year, Infranor said in March that it expected to make a loss of SFr4-5 million for the fiscal year 2001/2002.

swissinfo with agencies