Allco (AFG) fell to a record share price low of 33 cents this morning after banks seized a substantial percent stake in the company late yesterday.
Shares in the troubled financial group slumped 48% after the company lifted the trading halt it was placed in late yesterday afternoon.
Senior executives of Australia’s Allco Finance Group Ltd have lost control of a 14.2% stake in the company to secure collateral for unpaid loans.
National Australia Bank and Bank of Scotland International yesterday seized 52.8 million Allco shares, owned by Allco Principals Investments and its backers, including founder David Coe.
Also adding to the company’s woes, Allco also corrected information it provided to the stock exchange yesterday, stating it has been forced by margin calls to sell all of its holdings in three Rubicon property trusts.
After yesterday’s announcement that Credit Suisse had forced the sale of most of its holdings in the three trusts, Allco said today that information on the numbers of units sold had been wrong.
Credit Suisse actually had sold all of Allco’s units in each of the trusts.
”Contrary to earlier information provided by Credit Suisse, we have subsequently been advised by Credit Suisse that all of Allco’s unit holdings in the trusts (including those residuals (sic) holdings referred to above) were sold at the prices referred to in yesterday’s letter to the ASX,” Allco said in a statement today.
The correct number of Allco’s units that have been sold were 41,015,076 units in Rubicon Japan Trust at 22 cents, 46,608,334 units in Rubicon Europe Trust at 15 cents, and 46,056,227 units in Rubicon America Trust at 13 cents.
Shares in Allco recovered some of the losses from earlier in the day to close down by 16.67% at 52.5 cents.
