Since Sirius XM did not get back to trading above the $1 minimum by March 15th, it has now received a letter from the Nasdaq staff advising it that it has not regained compliance with the rule for continued listing on the exchange. But that is not expected to have any impact on the exchange listing for many months to come.
Sirius XM says it will request a hearing before a Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel, at which it will ask for a continued listing pending return to compliance. Under Nasdaq’s current listing rules, the panel may grant Sirius XM up to an additional 180 days from the date of the staff’s letter, or through September 13, 2010, to comply with the Nasdaq bid price requirement.
Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin has resisted doing a reverse stock split to get into compliance, even though shareholders have approved such a move. He has insisted that the $1 minimum rule serves no purpose. In a statement Wednesday, Karmazin insisted that Sirius XM is one of the premier stocks on Nasdaq.
“Sirius XM is one of the most liquid securities on The Nasdaq Global Select Market; we have a large investor base consisting of both individual and prominent institutional stockholders; and our equity capitalization is greater than approximately 92% of the companies listed on The Nasdaq Global Select Market. We are committed to remaining listed on The NASDAQ Global Select Market,” Karmazin said.
The announcement noted that Sirius XM has an equity capitalization of over $5.8 billion and an enterprise value of nearly $8.8 billion; In 2009, the company had revenue of over $2.5 billion; and over 3.7 billion shares of the company’s common stock are available in the public float.
In addition, Sirius XM noted, the Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. has announced that the company’s common stock will be added to the Nasdaq Q-50 Index effective with the market open on Monday, March 22nd. The Q-50 Index is designed to track the performance of the 50 securities that are next in line to replace the securities currently included in the Nasdaq-100 Index.
