The majority shareholder and chairman of Imperial Pacific International (IPI), Cui Li Jie, has been forced to sell a total of 2,204,600,000 shares in the company due after decline in its share price triggered the enforcement of margin financing.
According to a voluntary announcement over the weekend, Inventive Star, a company wholly-owned by Ms Cui and which held a 63.47% stake in IPI, was forced to sell the shares, representing 1.54% of issued share capital, via two transactions on 5 and 7 August 2020.
The transactions subsequently saw Inventive Star’s stake in IPI – currently developing troubled casino resort Imperial Palace‧Saipan – fall to 61.93%.
IPI shares hit a low of HK$0.010 as of Sunday night, having fallen from HK$0.029 a week earlier and from a 2020 high of HK$0.101 on 9 January. The shares reached their all-time high of HK$0.360 in mid-2015.
The plummet follows news last week that the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands had unsealed an indictment filed in August 2019 against three people, including two senior executives of Imperial Pacific International, for alleged conspiracy to hire illegal workers and money laundering.
IPI quickly moved to distance itself from those reports, claiming only one staff member was involved and that any criminal accusations were related to contractors and not the group itself.
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