ASIC probes Bill Express Email Print Normal font Large font AdvertisementMark Hawthorne and Jesse Hogan July 10, 2008
THE corporate watchdog is looking into allegations that the share price of Bill Express was manipulated to stave off margin calls.
The news comes as about 100 staff at the headquarters of Bill Express were yesterday told they had lost their jobs.
BusinessDay believes the Australian Securities and Investments Commission is investigating possible manipulation of the company's share price between December and March, to the benefit of Bill Express's major shareholder, On Q.
The matter was referred to ASIC by the Australian Securities Exchange, which is concerned by a number of significant trades lodged late on certain trading days late last year and early this year, as the Bill Express share price hovered near a point that would trigger a margin call.
On Q, the holding company out of which Bill Express was floated in 2004, held about 26 per cent of Bill Express's shares in margin loan accounts with the brokers Opes Prime, Tricom and Chimaera Capital at various stages last year. That included 18 per cent in an account with Opes Prime, which has since collapsed.
A margin call on those shares would have sent the share price of both On Q and Bill Express into a freefall.
On Q and Bill Express shared directors and staff, and operated out of the same head office.
Former staff and company directors say the entities were parts of the same business. Bill Express operated the Australian business while On Q owned the intellectual property rights to the electronic payment system and held a 37 per cent stake in Bill Express.
The ASX has also queried a sudden profit downgrade in February, a matter that BusinessDay believes has also been referred to ASIC for breach of continuous disclosure obligations.
The corporate watchdog is also examining what happened to $35 million raised by the float of Bill Express in 2004.
ASIC wants to know how Bill Express, which has reported a profit in each year of operation since, collapsed under an estimated debt of $180 million.
BXP Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
