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BankruptcyNews
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 Posted - 02 October 2007 : 10:34:00
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Investors in debt advisory companies took fright as Debtmattersgave warning that fees proposed by the British Bankers’ Association for individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs) would make the business unprofitable. Shares in Debtmatters crashed 49¼p to 18¼p as the company said that it was cutting staff at its IVA division, suspending advertising and effectively putting itself up for sale. Rival Debt Free Direct lost 67p to 163p, Debts.co.uk fell 20p to 76p, and Accuma lost 6p to 20p.
Justin Bates, analyst at Daniel Stewart, said: “A cheap sale is a possibility, but run-off probably more likely.” Debtmatters has lower revenues from IVAs than Accuma and Debt Free Direct, but Mr Bates has downgraded forecasts for all companies in the sector.
Vernalis, the biotech business, lost 20½p to 20p after it said the US regulator, the FDA, had not accepted trial results for its key migraine drug, Frov-atriptan. Analysts said it may have to go for retrial, leading to lengthy delays.
Erinaceous, the property adviser that has breached banking covenants, dropped 12p to 43p after Vincent Tchenguiz’s Consensus Business Group denied reports that it was in talks to take over the company, although it said it may in the future make a bid.
Coms jumped 25 per cent to 0.375p after it won the UK rights to distribute Polycom SoundPoint phones.
Torotrak was up 5¾p to 33¾p after licensing its traction drive system to India’s Tata motors. Fellow automotive components engineer Wagon gained 5¾p to 35½p after revealing that despite difficulty in the financial markets, it had raised new finances at favourable terms.
Absolute Capital Management, the fund manager hit by the departure of co-founder Florian Homm, jumped 12p to 83½p after it emerged that former owners of the Cyprus-based Argo bond fund, which merged with Absolute in January, had increased their stake to 10.2 per cent.
Source: times.co.uk
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