Source: Environmental Protection Circle
Author: Fu Bowang clan
The boots really hit the ground.
On March 19, the Shanghai Stock Exchange issued the "Announcement on the Termination of the Listing of the Shares of Poten Environment Group Co., Ltd." After deliberation by the Listing Review Committee of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, it was decided to terminate the listing of Poten Environment's shares.
▼Image source: Shanghai Stock Exchange
In fact, since the beginning of this year, a number of A-share listed companies have been in a deep delisting crisis, *ST Huayi, *ST Bolong, *ST Oceanwide, *ST Aidi, and ST Hongda have been forced to delist because the face value is less than 1 yuan.
So, in the environmental protection industry, in addition to Poten Environment, who is the next company that may be delisted?
1
The listing of Poten Environment's shares was terminated
Enter the delisting consolidation period
The delisting crisis of Poten Environment began at the end of last year.
On December 8, 2023, *ST Poten disclosed the Advance Notice of Administrative Penalty and Market Prohibition ([2023] No. 20) (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice") issued by the Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau. According to the content, *ST Poten is suspected of financial fraud for 5 consecutive years from 2017 to 2021. According to the delisting rules, *ST Poten may be subject to mandatory delisting due to material violations.
▼Image source: Poten Environment
It was found that Poten Environment was suspected of inflating or decreasing its operating income and profits through various means, resulting in false records in the annual reports of 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.
On February 2 this year, Poten Environment received the "Prior Notice of Intention to Terminate the Listing of the Company's Shares" issued by the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and the company's shares will be suspended from the opening of the market on February 5, 2024 (Monday).
On February 19, Poten Environment announced that the company received the "Market Prohibition Decision" issued by the Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau on February 18, and determined that there were false records in the annual reports of Poten Environment in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, which constituted illegal information disclosure under the Securities Law.
The Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau decided to impose a seven-year ban on Zhao Lijun, then chairman and president of Poten Environment, from entering the securities market.
On March 1, Poten Environment announced that Mr. Zhao Lijun, Chairman and President of Poten Environment, resigned as Chairman, Director, Convener of the Strategy Committee of the Board of Directors, Member of the Audit Committee, and resigned as President.
▼Image source: Poten Environment
After the delisting risk warning, stock suspension, market ban, and resignation of the chairman, now, the delisting of Poten has finally ushered in the "finale".
According to Article 9.1.15 of the Stock Listing Rules, Poten Environment shall immediately arrange for the transfer of shares to securities trading venues such as the National Equities Exchange and Quotations for share transfer, so as to ensure that the company's shares can be transferred within 45 trading days from the date of delisting.
In the future, the starting date of Poten Environment's shares entering the delisting period will be March 27, 2024, and the delisting period will be 15 trading days. If the all-day suspension factor is not considered, the last trading day is expected to be April 18, 2024, and if the securities trading date is adjusted, the last trading date of the company's delisting period will be postponed. If the company's shares are suspended for the whole day during the delisting period, the suspension period will not be included in the delisting period, and the estimated last trading date will be postponed. The cumulative number of trading suspension days throughout the day shall not exceed 5 trading days.
2
Another ST stock on environmental governance
It has locked in "1 yuan delisting"
In addition to Poten Environment, there is also an environmental governance ST stock, which has also locked in "1 yuan delisting".
On March 4, ST Xingyuan closed at 0.87 yuan per share, and the closing price has been below 1 yuan for 19 consecutive trading days. According to the relevant regulations of the exchange, if the daily closing price of the company's shares is lower than 1 yuan for 20 consecutive trading days, the company's shares may be terminated.
According to the calculation of the Securities Times, even if the limit is limited in the next trading day, the share price of ST Xingyuan cannot return to 1 yuan before the "big limit" on the 20th, so as to lock in the "1 yuan delisting" in advance.
It is understood that ST Xingyuan belongs to the industry of environmental governance, mainly engaged in hotel and property management, clean energy, water resources infrastructure management project development and investment, has an environmental protection company - Zhejiang Begeler Environmental Protection Equipment Co., Ltd., is a comprehensive environmental protection equipment manufacturer mainly engaged in mechanical filtration, sludge disposal, soil remediation, solid waste incineration treatment, sewage treatment, waste gas treatment and other fields of special equipment development, manufacturing and system integration.
On the evening of December 8 last year, ST Xingyuan issued an announcement that it was investigated by the China Securities Regulatory Commission. In the announcement, ST Xingyuan claimed that due to the company's suspected illegal information disclosure (related matters were not disclosed due to major violations of guarantees and related party capital transactions), the CSRC decided to investigate the company.
On February 21 this year, ST Xingyuan received a letter of concern from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, which not only reminded the company that there was a risk of trading delisting, but also said that it had paid attention to the company's investigation by the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the large loss in the 2023 annual performance forecast, and the judicial freezing and auction of the shares held by the controlling shareholder.
In fact, since the beginning of this year, many companies such as *ST Huayi, *ST Bolong, *ST Oceanwide, *ST Aidi, ST Hongda, and ST Guiren have been forced to delist because the face value is less than 1 yuan.
3
A number of environmental protection listed companies have been punished
The China Securities Regulatory Commission set off a "storm of anti-counterfeiting"
In the past year, Poten is not the only environmental protection listed company that has been punished by the securities regulatory department.
On the evening of January 7, Xingyuan Environment announced that it received the "Administrative Penalty Decision", due to the inflated project income and cost of the wholly-owned subsidiary, resulting in false records in the company's financial data, Xingyuan Environment and the company's financial director were fined respectively.
According to the "Administrative Penalty Decision", Hangzhou Zhongyi Ecological Environment Engineering Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhongyi Ecology"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xingyuan Environment, in 2016 and 2017, in the PPP project of Changxing County Beautiful Town (Bid Section 1 and Lot 2) and the PPP project of the marine ecological corridor renovation and restoration project on the island in Dongtou District, Wenzhou, there were false records in the financial data and related disclosures of Xingyuan Environment's annual reports from 2016 to 2022.
There is also an enlightening environment that has been exposed by the media before "financial fraud". In September 2023, the official website of the Hubei Securities Regulatory Bureau disclosed that due to illegal information disclosure, a warning and a fine of 600,000 yuan were given to Tus-Environment, and four relevant responsible persons including Wen Yibo, the then chairman, were warned and fined 300,000 yuan.
▼Image source: China Securities Regulatory Commission
In July 2023, Longking also received an administrative penalty decision from the Fujian Supervision Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, which determined that ST Longking failed to disclose related party transactions as required, and decided to give a warning to the company and impose a fine of one million yuan. Several other responsible persons were given warnings and fines of varying amounts.
A month earlier, in June 2023, Meishang Ecology also received an administrative penalty decision from the China Securities Regulatory Commission, confirming that Meishang Ecology's 2015 company prospectus, 2015 to 2019 annual report, 2020 semi-annual report, 2016 non-public issuance of shares and payment of cash to purchase assets and raise matching funds and related party transaction report, In 2017, there were false records in the prospectus and other information disclosure documents for the public issuance of corporate bonds to qualified investors, and it was decided to order him to make corrections, give a warning, and impose a fine of 13.3 million yuan.
In addition, in May 2023, Zhuojin Co., Ltd. and *ST Colin also received a penalty decision from the securities regulatory department in February 2023, ordering corrections, giving warnings, and imposing a certain amount of fines. *ST Colin's two related parties, Du Jiancheng and Li Genwang, were also banned from the securities market for three years.
The reason why so many environmental protection companies have problems is related to the fact that the China Securities Regulatory Commission is "cracking down on counterfeiting". According to public information, the China Securities Regulatory Commission is carrying out actions to "strictly crack down on fraudulent issuance, financial fraud and other illegal information disclosure".
▼Image source: China Securities Regulatory Commission
In the past three years, the China Securities Regulatory Commission has handled a total of 397 cases of illegal information disclosure of listed companies, a year-on-year increase of nearly 20%. Among them, 203 cases of financial fraud were handled.
According to the CSRC, financial fraud by listed companies has always been the focus of the CSRC's law enforcement. In the next step, they will take comprehensive measures to improve the ability to discover, improve the working mechanism, strengthen accountability, and highlight the combination of crackdown and prevention, so as to continuously eradicate the breeding ground for counterfeiting, effectively maintain the foundation of market integrity, and protect the legitimate rights and interests of investors.