Waterford Wedgwood to delist from NASDAQ

WATERFORD Wedgwood is to give up its listing on New York’s NASDAQ, the struggling luxury goods group said yesterday.

The firm, whose chief executive Redmond O’Donoghue stepped down last month, said it would delist on Tuesday because its share price closed below the minimum $1 threshold for more than 30 days.

But a statement said only small volumes of shares had been traded through the NASDAQ and that the American Depositary Share (ADS) mechanism accounted for less than 0.2% of the company’s ownership.

“The group believes the delisting will have no measurable effect on the share’s market trading given the negligible proportion of share capital represented by the NASDAQ listing,” the company said.

It added the move would be good for the company’s cost base by trimming the “increasing cost burden of complying with US securities regulations”.

The company, in which chairman Tony O’Reilly and his brother-in-law Peter Goulandris hold a majority stake, will continue to trade in Dublin and London.