Founder Wolfgang Grenke offers to sell franchise holdings to Grenke

Founder Wolfgang Grenke will "suspend his supervisory board mandate" at German leasing company Grenke GLJ, -6.73% and has offered to sell the shareholdings in the franchise companies held by CTP, which he controls.

The offer comes after a short-selling firm, Viceroy Research, alleged accounting irregularities at the group. Any sale would be done at "market conditions and backed by appropriate independent valuation reports." An independent auditing company will be commissioned to examine the market conformity of the franchise acquisitions of the previous years and their advantageousness for Grenke, and the Grenke family pledged to keep its shareholding of 40.84% in the long-term, the company said. Last week, Grenke said KPMG would perform a special audit.