The shares of Intueri Education Group Ltd (ASX: IQE) have been crushed today after the company came out of its trading halt. At the time of writing its shares are down a massive 77%, bringing its 12-month decline to a disastrous 94%.
Late last week the vocational education company requested an immediate trading halt on its shares "pending the release of an announcement to the market concerning notification received from the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) relating to possible sanctions."
Later in the day the company provided the market with details regarding the notification and it was perhaps even worse than shareholders had feared. Management revealed that following an audit the ASQA intended to either cancel the registration of two of Intueri's Registered Trading Organisations (RTO), or impose less severe sanctions.
The loss of these RTOs would be incredibly significant. Approximately two-thirds of the company's earnings are expected to be generated by these businesses in 2016.
This morning the company updated the market with further details and advised that the ASQA audits found that the two Intueri subsidiaries are not compliant with ASQA standards, primarily relating to admissions procedures, assessment practices, and learner support resources.
A final decision on the audit outcome may take a number of months and management believes that a number of the findings are capable of being disputed or remedied. But even so, I would caution against trying to buy the crash.
This is a company that is dangling by a thread. If the two businesses have their registrations cancelled then I do fear for the company's future.
Even management has advised investors to not buy its shares. In today's release it stated that:
"Intueri strongly cautions any investor seeking to trade in Intueri shares, and especially any investor seeking to acquire Intueri shares, to take full account of the information provided in this update before trading and consider delaying any such trading until further information is available."
In the meantime investors looking for alternative options in the sector would no doubt be better served with the likes of Navitas Limited (ASX: NVT) and G8 Education Ltd (ASX: GEM) in my opinion.
