Horizon operates as the bank holding company for Horizon Bank, Inc. which provides a range of commercial and retail banking services.

According to a recently filed securities class action Complaint, it is alleged that between March 9, 2022 and March 10, 2023, Horizon Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ: HBNC) via certain officers and directors, made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company’s business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) the Company maintained deficient internal accounting controls relating to its classification of certain loan balances and securities; (ii) as a result of the foregoing deficiencies, throughout 2022 the Company issued quarterly financial statements containing errors that would require subsequent revision; (iii) restatement of the foregoing financial statements would hinder the Company’s ability to timely file its annual report for 2022; and (iv) as a result, the Company’s public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On March 10, 2023, after trading hours, Horizon filed a notice of the Company’s inability to timely file its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 with the SEC, announcing receipt of a notice from NASDAQ as a result of failing to timely file its annual report, as well as disclosing that it had identified material weaknesses in its internal controls. Specifically, the material weakness related to:

(i) accounting revisions of previously issued financial statements with respect to the classification of sold commercial loan participation balances, the reporting of indirect loan dealer reserve asset balances and related amortization expense and the classification of certain available for sale and held to maturity securities from private labeled mortgage-backed pools to federal agency mortgage pool, which revisions were previously disclosed in the Earnings Release and the Company’s Form 10-Q filings during 2022, in addition to errors in previously issued financial statement disclosures relating to the transfer of available for sale to held to maturity securities and the cash flow classification of repurchases of outstanding stock from an investing activity to a financing activity, which will be disclosed for the first time in the 2022 Form 10-K, and (ii) a calculation error in the Company’s public float as noted above.

On this news, Horizon’s stock price fell $1.43 per share, or 10.96%, to close at $11.62 per share on March 13, 2023.

Current Horizon Bancorp shareholders who have held Horizon Bancorp stock since before March 9, 2022, can seek corporate reforms, the return of funds spent defending litigation back to the company, and a court approved incentive award, at no cost to them.

If you would like to learn more about this matter, you are encouraged to contact us at jgrabar@grabarlaw.com, or call 267-507-6085.