Pound Land floatation postponed due to stock market fears as worst market for 33 years due to Coronavirus

South African owned group Steinhoff has decided to hold back on a public flotation for its  Poundland brand as the stock market crashed to its worst day in 33 years.

Steinhoff have placed on hold a potential flotation of its Pepco Group business, which comprises 2000 stores across Europe including Poundland in the UK high streets.

The company was expected finalise a stock market flotation later this year, after it confirmed last November that it was looking at all avenues for the future of Pepco Group.

The decision to hold back was also made with the timing of Poundland top chief Andy Bond taking two months of leave due to health issues.

The news comes as the FTSE 100 closed yesterday down by more than one tenth as fears over the coronavirus pandemic sparked the index’s worst bloodbath since 1987.

Investors ran for their financial lives from London’s shares as the market closed Thursday down by 639.04 points to 5237.48, wiping out in excess £160 billion off the value of the markets 100 companies.

The 10.87 per cent fall is also worse than any day during the 2008 financial crisis and investors wanting to find a bigger drop need to look back to October 20 1987, the day after Black Monday, when the FTSE 100 fell 12.2 per cent.

It was also the second worst day in the FTSE’s history, ahead of the 10.84% fall on Black Monday itself.

Fuengirola based stock market  trader Paul Gregory told the Euro Weekly News ” It’s no surprise, the markets are in a mess, a floatation at this time would be crazy, Stienhoff are coming off the back of an accounting scandal that set them back around 7 billion pounds and it’s a wise decision to hold back a floatation, they off loaded last year both Harvey’s and Bensons beds and they can’t afford really to be taking the gamble right now”