Citing significant costs but limited benefit, Pipestone, Minn.-based Juhl Energy filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to de-register its common stock and suspend its reporting obligations under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
The company says it will still trade publicly but via OTC Pink – an exchange that does not have any reporting requirements. In Wall Street parlance, so-called ‘pink sheets’ get their name from an earlier paper-based system that printed on pink paper.
According to Juhl Energy, too much time and focus was exhausted meeting the requirements of self-reporting.
‘In addition to the high cost of being public in what we feel is a low liquidity environment, we have determined that the market is extremely difficult for micro-caps and, at best, very inefficient,’ states John Mitola, president of Juhl Energy. ‘The large swings that have occurred in the market over the past two months based on 'news of the day' versus investment fundamentals have affected the large cap market, as well. In lieu of all this, management feels that by stepping out of this world, our team will be free to focus solely on our ongoing growth and building the long-term value of our company.
‘We must note that our interpretations are not isolated; almost 1,000 companies filed [similar] Form 15s last year, and over 600 companies have done so already this year. I believe much of this fracture in the marketplace is a fallout of the market crash of 2008, and as a result, liquidity has never returned to small-cap and micro-cap stocks.’
Despite electing to suspend its reporting obligations, the company plans to voluntarily file a Form 8-K with the SEC, following the close of its current fiscal quarter, to include certain financial information for the quarter ended Sept 30.
