Meta Financial Group Inc. has been notified that Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. might delist its stock because it did not file a quarterly earnings report with the Securities and Exchange Commission on time.
The $686 million-asset Storm Lake, Iowa, company said after the market closed Monday that it expects to have a hearing before a listing qualifications panel in April. The stock will continue to trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market in the meantime.
Meta had said Feb. 15 that it would delay reporting results for its fiscal first quarter, which ended Dec. 31, as it hires a new accounting firm. It said McGladrey & Pullen LLP resigned as its accounting firm because of a potential conflict.
The company also said at the time that it expects to report a loss of $300,000 to $800,000 for the quarter, compared with a loss of $2.7 million a year earlier. Meta did not specify the reason for the anticipated loss. However, it did say it likely would report a 50% jump in noninterest expenses, as a result of the company's growth. (It attributed the $2.7 million loss in its first quarter last year to a $4.8 million provision to cover a commercial loan that went bad.)
In addition, the company said in the Feb. 15 announcement that it is investigating the possibility that a former Meta employee embezzled $3.8 million. Further losses from the alleged embezzlement could be discovered in the investigation, Meta said, but it expects the losses to be covered by insurance.
It said that the fraud allegations involve at least $3.8 million of forged certificates of deposit that were sold to other financial institutions. Meta said it became aware of the problem when some institutional clients tried to collect money owed on the deposits.
