The Agency handed ASX speeding ticket
Listed real estate group The Agency has been hit with an ASX query about the high volume of shares traded on Thursday, when its share price fell as much as 22 per cent.
The stock reached a low of $0.007 per security on a busy day of trade, with 9.3 million shares changing hands. The shares were sitting at $0.008 on Friday morning.
The ASX asked The Agency on Thursday night whether it knew of any reason for the high volume, to which the company replied: ''No''. It also told the ASX that it was ''not applicable'' to make any announcement to the market on the large volume of trade.
Under its listing rules, the ASX monitors the volume of trading rather than price movement.
The Agency has 684 million shares on issue, with top shareholder John Kolenda holding 42.7 million shares, equal to 5.4 per cent, followed by Coast Equity with 25.5 million shares or 3.22 per cent.
The Agency is a combined group of real estate agents and businesses based in Perth. It has an option agreement to buy east coast agency Top Level, run by former McGrath agents including Matt Lahood and Ben Collier. That agreement has been extended to mid August.
It was suggested by market watchers that the selldown may be in part a reflection of tax-loss selling leading into the end of financial year.
The Agency's chief executive, Paul Niardone, said in April that he had terminated an underwriting agreement for a capital raising of about $10 million to fund the purchase of Top Level.
Since then the group has borrowed $1.1 million for three months to cover costs.
On Monday, Mr Niardone said, despite the flat residential sector, based on independent analysis from the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia, its Perth-based operation of Sell Lease Property was recognised as the top office by listings sold, selling 53 properties worth $24.3 million for the month.
There is also a perceived softening of the east coast real estate market and the potential impact on real estate agents in general.
One analyst added that the negative sentiment around Purple Bricks, which is a completely different real estate model, could also be causing confusion.