The Financial Markets Authority has for the first time published a review of a prospectus forecast which it regards as questionable.
The FMA reviewed Gentrack's prospectus after the technology company had to mark down its profit forecast by as much as 32 percent, shortly after listing on the NZX a few months ago.
James Docking Photo: SUPPLIED
FMA's primary markets director Simone Robbers said Gentrack could have done more to inform investors about the risks and the authority expected other companies to take note of the review's recommendations.
"Our conclusions found that the offer documents could have been more balanced in their description of variability or stability of revenue. However, we had no reason to believe that the offer documents contained any untrue statements or were misleading.
"Really, there were no breaches that we found, but the offer documents could have been clearer in addressing things like likelihood, potential impact of risks to its financial forecast."
The FMA would not take any action against Gentrack because it said the technology company's prospectus was not misleading or untrue.
However, it said company could have done a better job of highlighting risks associated with its unstable revenue stream, which accounted for about 30 percent of its income.
Gentrack chief executive James Docking said he hoped the FMA's report would provide some reassurance to investors.
"It's all very easy in hindsight to say, 'Look, these things went wrong and we should have known about it' - but at the time, the nature of our business is we have a number of projects in play and a number of them went well and a couple of them didn't go as expected.
"So could we have identified that better in hindsight? It's not that easy. I think the FMA identified that the directors perhaps could've noted their individual thoughts on the risks as part of the due diligence process, so I think that's one thing that came out of the review which I think that's been documented so that future companies listing can take note of it."
