China New Energy throws in the towel on public listing

If the likes of Clive Garston at Halliwells are right – and he is certainly in the majority camp – some small-cap companies might think that having a public listing that is not generating any investor interest is more trouble than it is worth.
The first such group to throw in the public listing towel is China New Energy, which has come to the conc-lusion that being listed on the PLUS index is simply a waste of time. "The directors believe that, in the current environment, any benefits of the listing are outweighed by the costs involved whilst there were no dealings in the company's shares in the past year," it announced in a statement to the stock exchange on Friday morning.
The company, which will carry on trading privately, was established as an investment vehicle in the renewable energy sector in China. Today, the group provides turnkey technology for China's bioethanol market. Investors now have 10 working days to object to the move, but since none of them bought or sold a single share in the whole of last year, it would be a surprise if anyone complains about the move by a company that reckons it gains no benefit whatsoever from being listed.