Trading in the shares of AIM-listed Hemisphere Properties resumed on Monday after being suspended since December.
The company also announced that 33% shareholder and chief executive Desmond Bloom and finance director Ivan Minter had resigned. Half-year losses to the end of September widened to £1.4m, from £560,000 a year earlier. Hemisphere’s share price fell 22% to 1.75p on Monday when trading resumed.
Bloom told EG this week that he had resigned after a disagreement about the “direction” the company was taking with Chinese businessman and 50% shareholders YS Chan and David Ho. Chan has taken over management of the company.
Bloom believes Chan and Ho want to sell the company’s UK assets, valued at £18m: a development site in north London consisting of Spring Park Hotel on Seven Sisters Road, set to be acquired next month by Hemisphere for £4.9m including debt, and 70 apartments adjoining the hotel.
Bloom said this was “totally against the company’s prospectus, which the Chinese directors seem set to completely ignore”.
Bloom said Ho and Chan had “stated” that the UK assets would be sold and that the company would concentrate on its Chinese business including the 700,000 sq ft Lanzhou International Trade Centre in Gansu Province, acquired in May last year for £35.6m and currently valued at £45m.
Chan told EG that no decision had been made about the UK business and the company was in the process of “reviewing all investments”.
Hemisphere’s shares were suspended on 13 December after it said it could not pay £1.1m of its debt.
The company, advised by Shore Capital, said it had raised £9.7m from property sales and new loans and equity since December and believed “working capital available to the company is sufficient for its present purposes”.
Chan said it was in negotiations with a bank for “further facilities” to part refurbish the Lanzhou building.
