Counselor Top 40 distributor Stran Promotional Solutions (asi/337725) this week issued new, audited reports on its financial performance for the years 2022 and 2023.

The publicly traded company said that 2023 revenue tallied nearly $75.15 million, down from the previously reported $75.89 million. Meanwhile, 2022 restated revenue was $57.87 million, about $1 million below the formerly reported $58.95 million.

Stran’s new financial data showed that the firm sustained a loss of about $385,000 in 2023. Previously, the firm had reported a slight profit of $35,000. For 2022, Stran’s loss was $3.5 million. Initially, the company reported the 2022 loss as $778,441.

The top-line revenue totals don’t quite paint the whole picture of Stran’s performance in 2022 and 2023, as they leave out sales from distributors that Stran acquired in those years before the various acquisitions closed – a required way of reporting for publicly traded firms, executives said.

In reporting revenue for consideration to make Counselor’s 2023 and 2024 Top 40 distributor lists, Stran included full-year sales for the brands/companies it had acquired in each of those years, hence discrepancies between totals that appear on the Top 40 lists and what’s reported to satisfy publicly traded company requirements.

Stran executives said the newly audited information doesn’t materially impact the sums reported to ASI Media for Counselor Top 40 consideration. The Quincy, MA-based distributorship ranked 27^th on Counselor’s most recent list of the largest distributors in the industry based on reported 2023 North American promo revenue of $82.1 million.

“We have put a lot of time into ensuring we complete our filings properly and are excited to get back to our business principles.” Andy Shape, Stran Promotional Solutions (asi/337725)

Auditor Troubles

Stran has been working with a new auditor, Marcum LLP, to analyze its financial performance to ensure compliance with NASDAQ reporting standards since after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a $14 million settlement in May against Stran’s former auditor, BF Borgers.

BF Borgers, now defunct, engaged in “deliberate and systemic failures” to comply with standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board in audits and reviews incorporated in 1,500 SEC filings between January 2021 and June 2023, according to the SEC.

The BF Borgers downfall meant that companies that had relied on the firm for audits, like Stran, needed to have new audits performed. Stran and other BF Borgers clients were not accused of wrongdoing.

“We have put a lot of time into ensuring we complete our filings properly and are excited to get back to our business principles,” Stran CEO Andy Shape, a member of Counselor’s Power 50 list of promo’s most influential people, told ASI Media.

Stran is now in the midst of preparing its 2024 financials. Preliminary unaudited results reported in late December showed that the company increased sales during the first nine months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, with revenue coming in at around $57 million.

When Stran announced its acquisition of casino loyalty company Gander Group in August 2024, executives said Stran was projecting to generate north of $100 million in 2024 sales – a tally that would include Gander’s full-year 2024 revenue, according to executives.

NASDAQ data shows Stran’s stock was trading around 80 cents per share on Jan. 23. The stock’s high point was above $6 per share in 2022, according to NASDAQ information.