The Irish Stock Exchange referred a memo last year to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) about the “suspicious nature” of shares traded in Siteserv prior to the company’s sale in 2012.

An annual report by the Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) on its activities for 2015 — sent last week to Mary Mitchell-O’Connor, the minister for jobs, enterprise and innovation — notes that the memo was sent to the ODCE “given the suspicious nature of certain dealings” that emerged last year.

It is understood that this is a reference to a sharp rise in share activity in Siteserv in the month before the state-owned bank IBRC received the first bids for the firm in what was supposed to be a confidential sales process.

Last year The Sunday Times revealed how 6.4m shares in Siteserv changed hands in November 2011, despite the shares being worth only between 2c and 3.5c each. Between January and October 2011, only 121,000 shares had changed hands.

The first media report that Siteserv was for sale was published in January 2012

…A commission of investigation into IBRC, which has been asked to investigate the share activity, has also been frustrated in its attempts to uncover the owners of the nominee accounts that bought shares prior to the sale of Siteserv.

It has said legislation must be enacted to let it investigate the share activity in advance of the sale to Millington.

ISE flagged ‘suspicious’ Siteserv activity (Colin Coyle, Sunday Times)

Previously: Timeline To A Killing

Rollingnews