A story about SaaS accounting firm Xero has been pulled from the Stuff website after complaints from Xero's CEO and founder Rod Drury.
Drury says the story, which focused on free subscriptions provided by Xero, is "factually incorrect". He says no free subscriptions were counted in the customer numbers reported in the company's results earlier this month.
The story was published in The Independent Financial Review on Wednesday. Editor Nick Stride says he thought it best to take it down while the issues are sorted out.
Drury says Xero has been clear and transparent in its communications with shareholders and the story had an impact on Xero's reputation.
It doesn't appear to have had an impact on the company's share price, however. Xero shares were trading today at 85 cents, slightly ahead of their long term prices since November.
Xero reported it had made its projected customer numbers, but only made $134,000 in revenue. It posted a net loss of $4.31 million for the year to March.
Drury says as a start-up, revenue should be expected to follow a "hockey stick" pattern, growing sharply at the end of the reporting period.
— Computerworld is published by Fairfax, which also publishes The Independent Financial Review