PETALING JAYA: Shares of Utusan Melayu Bhd slumped today after it failed to submit a regularisation plan to Bursa Malaysia. The stock closed 4 sen or 36.7% lower at 7 sen on 1.37 million shares done.
In a filing with the stock exchange today, Utusan Melayu said trading in its securities will be suspended with effect from Aug 28 and will be delisted on Aug 30 unless an appeal against the delisting is submitted to Bursa Securities on or before Aug 27.
On Monday, Utusan Melayu said it was not able to meet the requirements to uplift the PN17 status due to cash flow constraints and the losses incurred in the first two quarters of the year.
It was also not be able to find any potential investor to participate in order to revive the group, mainly due to its huge liabilities.
Consequently, the group will cease publication for its titles Utusan Malaysia and Kosmo! tomorrow.
For the second quarter ended June 30, 2019 the group recorded a net loss of RM3.89 million against a net profit of RM18.85 million for the same quarter of the previous year. Revenue for the quarter tumbled 59.4% to RM25.91 million from RM63.87 million.
For the six-month period, it also incurred a net loss of RM12.09 million versus a net profit of RM13.01 million in the same period last year, while revenue sank 55.9% to RM52.66 million from RM119.38 million.
Utusan fell into PN17 in August last year after it defaulted on loan payments to Maybank Islamic and Bank Mualamat totalling RM1.18 million.
Earlier, 100 staff from the editorial department staged a protest over unpaid salaries outside their office. Among them were journalists, graphic artists and photographers.
