MADRID, Jan 9 Reuters Hedge fund Gotham City Research on Tuesday alleged the debt ratios of Spanish drug company Grifols are actually much higher than officially reported, thus making its shares uninvestable.

Gotham City said Grifols manipulates its reported debt and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation artificially thus reducing its leverage ratio through deceptive and incorrect treatment of financial statements.

The hedge fund said it believes the leverage ratio is close to 10 to 13 times EBITDA, rather than the 6 times officially reported by the company.

Ahead of the market open, Madridlisted Grifols shares were indicated 15 lower than Monday39;s closing price on Tradegate.

A Grifols spokesperson said the company plans to respond to Gotham City39;s allegations via a filing with Spain39;s stock market regulator.

KPMG, which audited Grifols39; 2022 accounts, did not respond to requests for comment.

Gotham City Research is a hedge fund focused on due diligencebased investing. On its website, it said it has long or short positions in the companies it reports on.

The fund has targeted online advertising company Criteo and Applesupplier AAC Technologies and more recently French smart labels maker SES Imagotag.

Reporting by Inti Landauro; editing by Jason Neely, Kirsten Donovan

Source Reuters