The owner of Royal Mail, International Distributions Services PLC (LSE:IDS), said it was unable to publish its final results today as auditors have asked for more time.
IDS had scheduled the numbers to be reported at 7am this morning, Thursday 23 May, and this date was still confirmed on its investor relations page this afternoon.
Then at just before 2pm, the FTSE 250-listed group issued a statement confirming that publication of the results has been delayed due to auditor KPMG having "requested additional time to complete the usual standard procedures after their internal reviews were late in the audit timetable, thereby delaying their final audit process".
With no new expected date for publication offered, the shares dropped 2.6% to 319p on the announcement.
The IDS board said it still expects adjusted operating profit - excluding redundancy costs - for the year to 31 March 2024 to be "broadly in line with previously published guidance".
It said it will announce an updated date for the results to be published "as soon as reasonably practicable".
This comes just over a week after the company's board said it was "minded" to agree to a takeover by Czech billionaire Daniel 'the Czech Sphinx' Kretinsky.
Kretinsky's EP Group proposed a bid worth £3.5 billion on May 15.