Penson Worldwide, a Dallas-based provider of securities clearing services and technology, said it will voluntarily delist and deregister its common stock.
The delisting on the NASDAQ Stock Market is expected to take place October 8. After that, the company will move to deregister its stock, with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
That will be triggered by the filing of a Form 15 with the SEC. Termination of the registration of its common stock is expected to take place roughly 90 days later.
At that point, Penson will no longer be required to file quarterly or annual financial reports or other documents required of companies who register their stocks with the SEC.
Penson said its board authorized the actions because it cannot maintain a price of more than $1 a share in its stock or keep its market value above $5 million.
At the end of trading Wednesday, its shares were priced at seven cents each.
Penson has been fighting a huge tailoff in its business since early 2011, when disclosed it possessed $97.4 million of “nonaccruable receivables.” In the first half of last year, it lost $31.4 million on revenue of $46.5 million. In the first half of this year, it lost $133.6 million on revenue of $22.3 million, according to its second quarter filing with the SEC.
The company has in that time re-structured its management more than once and been selling off assets.
The company shed its overseas operations and now focuses on clearing services in Canada and the United States. It sold its futures division to Knight Capital Group.
