More than three years after the failure of Integra Bank, the Securities and Exchange Commission has put a halt to trading in the Evansville company’s stock.
The move is a routine happening for the SEC. If a public company fails to file timely financial statements as required, the SEC frequently suspends trading and revokes registration for that company’s stock.
Integra failed on July 29, 2011, and was acquired by Evansville-based Old National Bank. The day after this, in an expected step, Integra filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
The last time Integra filed a financial report with the SEC was in March 2011, when it reported a quarterly loss of $46.2 million.
In July the SEC initiated administrative proceedings against a group of eight companies, including Integra. On Thursday, the agency revoked Integra’s securities registration, meaning that broker-dealers can no longer execute trades in the stock.
Securities and Exchange Commission’s order revoking the registration of Integra Bank’s stock
At the time of the bank’s failure, Integra’s stock had been delisted from the Nasdaq market because its share price had dropped too low. Shares were traded over the counter under the symbol IBNKQ, and on the day Integra failed its stock price closed at 6 cents per share.
According to historical stock information listed on Yahoo Finance online, shares of the stock had been periodically traded, even after the share value had dropped to zero.
Until the SEC revokes a company’s stock registration, it allows trading in that stock “because it does not want to forbid transactions between willing buyers and sellers, including those holding shares in defunct companies,” says an SEC information sheet on the agency’s website.
In Thursday’s revocation order, the SEC said that as of July 7 of this year, Integra’s stock was quoted on OTC Link operated by OTC Markets Inc; and had nine market makers.