Culturecom Holdings dived 15.94 per cent on Thursday after investors' hopes that a strategic partner would take a stake in the company were dashed.
Culturecom shares were suspended from trading on Monday pending an announcement of a possible share placement. But the publishing and IT services firm said yesterday that talks relating to the share placement had ended.
'There had been talks the company might place new shares to one strategic partner which is an internationally well-known company,' one fund manager said, adding the firm was said to be placing 400 million new shares at 63 cents each.
'At first it was said the placee would be IBM but later talks were that it was someone else,' the fund manager said.
'No one knew what had happened. Some even suspected there was never a strategic partner at all and investors punished the company by dumping the shares,' the fund manager said.
Terry Cheung, managing director at Culturecom, did not provide a detailed explanation of what happened yesterday but said this would not have any impact on future fund-raising exercises.
