The Nasdaq Stock Exchange allowed the resumption of trading in publicly traded shares of Pingtan Marine Enterprise, which was sanctioned by the U.S. government on 9 December.
Trading in Pingtan Marine resumed at 11 a.m. Eastern time on 19 December, after being halted on 9 December following the announcement of sanctions from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which effectively bar the company from doing business in the United States.
However, the company’s stock price has plummeted more than 99 percent to a valuation of USD 0.0001 (EUR 0.0001) in trading on Wednesday, 21 December. The stock closed at USD 0.33 (EUR 0.31) on Tuesday, 20 December.
In its initial press releases, Nasdaq said trading would remain halted until Pingtan Marine Enterprise had “fully satisfied Nasdaq’s request for additional information.” In its 19 December press release announcing the resumption of trading in the company’s stock, Nasdaq did not provide any details about what information it had requested or received from the company. Nasdaq did not respond to requests for comment from SeafoodSource on its decisions.
Even prior to the levying of sanctions, Pingtan Marine had struggled to get the price of its shares back up above the minimum of USD 1.00 (EUR 0.96) required to remain listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange.
The company planned to hold its 2022 annual general meeting on 14 December, but has not provided any information about the outcome of the meeting. Shareholders were set to vote on reappointing Xinrong Zhuo and Yonglu Tang for three-year terms as the company’s directors. Zhuo was included in the U.S. sanctions announced 9 December. A vote had also been planned on a share capital increase from USD 130,000 (EUR 123,000) to USD 1 million (EUR 943,000).
Pingtan Marine did not respond to SeafoodSource's request for comment.
The U.S. sanctions have underlined the need for far more due diligence by Western investors in overseas seafood companies, according to Michele Kuruc, the vice president of marine policy at WWF U.S. Pingtan was previously sanctioned by the U.S. State Department in December 2020, but prominent Western finance companies continued to buy or trade its shares up until the most-recent sanctions.
“There must be greater awareness throughout the wider financial community,” Kuruc told SeafoodSource. “At the moment, there is a low level of understanding of some of the risks they may face by investing in seafood companies. WWF continues to highlight the exposure industries might face when financing the seafood sector without due diligence, which includes risks associated with climate change, communities, and nature. Investors should do more due diligence on seafood-related investments with respect to ESG and use best practice principles and guidance to avoid these risks and make sure their investors’ capital is going towards companies that respect people and nature.”
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