South Canterbury Finance's preference shares - issued at $1 almost four years ago to raise $100 million - have continued to slide and hit an all-time low of 10c yesterday.
During the past fortnight, the preference shares, seen as an indicator of investor sentiment towards companies offering preference shares, have steadily declined from 27c to purchases at 10c yesterday.
While the original raising of $100 million has been slashed 90% to $10 million, based on yesterday's 10c, Craigs Investment Partners broker Peter McIntyre said buyers remained in the market.
"Those buying are obviously confident in the survival of the company," he said.
SCF, which is in the throes of major restructuring and recapitalisation to recover from more than $200 million of losses from soured property lending, has said the company had never missed a payment of principal or interest on the shares and hoped the restructuring would restore them to $1 par value.
An investor update from SCF chief executive Sandy Maier on Wednesday remains bullish.
Business turnaround was "progressing well" and investor support "remains critical to its success", he said of the "nearly" two-thirds of debenture holders who had rolled over their stock.
The preference shares immediately lost 5c on opening after eight entities of SCF founder Allan Hubbard were placed under statutory management by the Government on June 20 and a Serious Fraud Office inquiry launched.
Mr Mair reiterated SCF was not under statutory management, and its depositors remained covered by the Government's extended deposit guarantee scheme until the end of 2011.
He was "not aware" of "any direct impact" on SCF from the actions taken against Mr Hubbard.
