P&O Ferries’ auditor has resigned after multiple years of late financial accounts and a string of controversies over mass sackings and low pay for its workers.
KPMG has been P&O Ferries’ auditor since 2007 but recently resigned, according to accounts filed with Companies House in late April.
The ferry company is still yet to file its financial accounts for 2023, and only filed its 2022 accounts in December.
A spokesman for P&O Ferries said: “We thank KPMG for their services as our auditors. P&O Ferries is focused on filing our 2023 accounts as soon as possible.”
P&O Ferries is understood to have hired a new auditor, but declined to say who it was.
P&O was widely condemned in March 2022 when it sacked almost 800 workers without due consultation, replacing them with agency staff on lower wages and with different rota requirements.
The company fired employees without notice or union consultation, attracting widespread criticism from ministers, unions and the public.
It replaced the sacked workers with overseas agency staff, and told Parliament in 2022 its agency workers’ pay averaged £5.50 per hour.
Since then, its chief executive admitted to paying the firm’s workers as little as £4.87 per hour.
Peter Hebblethwaite told MPs on the Business and Trade Committee in 2024 that P&O’s workers were not being exploited, but said he could not live on £4.87 per hour.
P&O Ferries’ most recent accounts show that it spent more than £47 million on the sackings, which allowed it to slash the overall wage and salary bill by £21.3 million.
Its pre-tax losses fell to £246 million in 2022, compared with £375 million the previous year, while revenues rose by £84 million to £919 million.
KPMG declined to comment.
