Intueri's promoter, Arowana, suspends ASX trading

Arowana's shares having fallen nearly 35 per cent in the last 12 months. Photo / AP

ASX-listed Arowana International, the company that promoted the float of failed NZX-listed Intueri Education Group, has asked for trading in its shares to be suspended pending an announcement.

"Unless ASX decides otherwise, the securities will remain in trading halt until the earlier of the commencement of normal trading on Monday, February 10 or when the announcement is released to the market," the Australian stock market operator said yesterday.

There is no indication that the announcement will have anything to do with Intueri and Arowana hasn't yet said anything to its shareholders about the class action against it announced late last year.

Just before Christmas, the law firm fronting the class action, Adina Thorn Lawyers, said it had signed up about 300 retail and institutional shareholders with combined losses of about $50 million.

Intueri raised $177m from its 2014 float and then went into liquidation in 2017. The class action is backed by NZ-based litigation funder LPF Group.

The class action intends to target Arowana, its directors and certain former Intueri directors who promoted the $2.35 per share initial public offering in which about 800 investors participated.

While Arowana has said nothing about this to its shareholders, it did respond to questions from BusinessDesk last year by saying it is "confident that the proposed class action has no prospects of success."

Arowana also accused Adina Thorn of defaming people associated with it.

However, Arowana, which has a market capitalisation of just A$19.8m ($20.6m), its shares having fallen nearly 35 per cent in the last 12 months, may have other troubles.

Another of its former investments, the unlisted public company Evolution Group Holdings, a traffic management company, has suspended interest payments to holders of its A$32m of unsecured bonds.

In December, it was blaming this on rogue former executives but in January it said Australia's bush fires were partly to blame.

The Australian Financial Review reported last month that the loss-making Evolution has been plagued by operational and management challenges since about 20 of its management team left in the wake of a failed management buyout.

Evolution has said it terminated three former executives in June last year for paying themselves unauthorised bonuses, failing to pay tax obligations and non-payment of suppliers.