L&H voluntarily delists from Nasdaq Europe
By Reuters
May 18, 2001, 12:15 p.m. PT
BRUSSELS, Belgium--Belgian speech-technology company Lernout & Hauspie, which went from market highflier to a group struggling for survival, said on Friday it had voluntarily delisted from Nasdaq Europe.
L&H said in a statement that it had requested the delisting because it did not meet Nasdaq Europe's listing requirements, including sufficient market capitalization. L&H shares had been indefinitely suspended on Nasdaq Europe last November, when the company disclosed that its revenues for the two and a half years from 1998 to June 2000 had been overstated.
U.S. Nasdaq delisted L&H in December. The company, which once traded at above $70, has since been trading on the over-the-counter U.S. market known as the "pink sheets," where it closed at 40 cents on Thursday.
Nasdaq Europe said in a statement that it had accepted the voluntary withdrawal and would continue to cooperate, to the extent possible, with the judicial investigation under way.
L&H, which has said that its revenues were overstated by $373 million, has been under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and by Belgian authorities.
Its two co-founders, Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie, remain jailed in Belgium under a fraud investigation. The company is operating on bankruptcy protection both in the United States and Belgium.
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