28 June 2023: GL Audit Committee nominates HLB to be auditor, big step to publishing financial statements and resume trading of GL shares

Mr. Tatsuya Konoshita, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Group Lease Public Company Limited, said “on 28 June 2023, Group Lease’s BOD approved the agenda and invitation to GL’s 2023 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders (AGM). It is going to be held on 31^st July which is on time to previously announced by SET. One of the key agenda items is Agenda 7 to consider approving is for HLB Audit (Thailand) to be our Company’s auditor. This is fantastic news as it means our Audit Committee has received a proposal from one of the SEC approved auditors. Our AC has reviewed the qualifications and experience of HLB and concluded that HLB would be a good auditor for our shareholders. HLB is a global network of independent advisory and accounting firms across 156 countries, with 1,128 offices and also with more than 40,000 employees and ranked at Number 10 in the Global ranking.

Now it is up to our shareholders to consider and approve HLB to be our auditor. We are very excited to have a SEC approved auditor work with us so that we can finalize and publish our 2021, 2022, and 2023 financial statements. It was very long not to have an Auditor even for 2021 until now which made our Financials disclosures llate which resulted in  GL stop trading. It was a painful period of more than 2 years. However we overcame those problems and now have an auditor ready to work with us. It will be an important step forward for our shareholders.”

Mr. Riki Ishigami, Chief Executive Officer of Group Lease Public Company Limited, stated, “as I have previously said, this is in line with our plan to have a new auditor for years 2021 – 2023 audit our financial statements so that we can catch up on our public financial statements and eventually resume trading of our shares for our shareholder’s benefit. We are thrilled to have HLB review and audit our financial statements as we have always had nothing to hide and we have always been ready to be audited. Internally, we have maintained our quarterly and annual accounting processes and are ready to work quickly with HLB to publish our financial information so that the public can be informed on our progress and so that we can again meet the requirements for SET to allow trading of our shares. This is a great step in that direction and we are excited to keep you all updated on our progress.”