Steward health care stock8/5/2023 Court filings explain Steward’s complex corporate structure It had revenues of over US$1.5 million last year and has 444 facilities and approximately 44,000 licensed beds in 10 countries and across four continents. MPT is in the business of acquiring and developing net-leased hospital facilities. MPT claims in its court filings that this is an utter falsehood aimed at damaging the share price of the company. Those reports, which have also been reported in MaltaToday, have linked MPT to the Malta hospitals fiasco through Steward in Malta. It makes note of how in late January 2023, Viceroy announced that it held a short position in MPT and simultaneously published the first of 14 reports on the company it would issue in a steady stream over the ensuing weeks. “And for months, the firm, its members, and their cohorts have been spreading malicious falsehoods about MPT.” “But Viceroy does not play by the rules,” MPT said in its filing. Short-selling, MPT observes, is not illegal in the United States nor is it illegal to couple short-selling with criticism of a target company, provided the speaker does not deliberately or recklessly misrepresent facts for profit. MPT explains in its court filing how the ploy works: “The playbook for these attacks is simple: Take a short position in a stock or partner with someone who has one, publish false ‘research’ critical of the target company, amplify the false claims on social media, and then reap a profit- either directly, from the stock price drop you bet on and then caused, or indirectly, by collecting payments from other market players who profited on the drop.” Such is the toxicity of the Malta fallout that MPT accuses Viceroy of maliciously and falsely linking MPT to the Malta deal in a bid to damage its share price and make a short-selling profit off what it says was bogus research it published. The case accuses Viceroy and its members – Fraser John Perring, Gabriel Bernarde, and Aidan Lau – of being “in the business of mounting serial short-and-distort attacks against public companies” and that “MPT is their latest victim”.Ī short-and-distort attack is a type of securities fraud in which investors short-sell a stock and then spread negative rumours about the company in an attempt to drive down stock prices so they can then purchase the shares at a lower cost.Īccording to MPT, in order to do so Viceroy’s ploy was to maliciously accuse it of being involved in the still Malta hospitals debacle, which has seen the courts rescind the concession for the running of three state hospitals through a government-brokered deal it found was corrupt and fraudulent from cradle to grave. MPT says it’s Viceroy’s ‘latest short-and-distort attack victim’ MTP is claiming the reports are completely false and nothing short of a clear-cut case of market manipulation aimed at driving down MPT’s share price in what was part of a blatant short-selling exercise. “These are falsehoods, ginned up to try to undercut investor and public confidence in MPT and harm the company,” MTP said in court filings in the state of Alabama, where it is based, this week. In its scathing court filings, MPT has accused Viceroy of deliberately and maliciously “lying about its connections to Steward” in Malta in those reports for its own nefarious purposes and to “prop up its short attack” against the company by claiming it is deliberately concealing secret ownership in Steward-connected hospitals in Malta. One of the analyses in question was recently reported by MaltaToday, and Steward Health Care International was said to have asked the Maltese government to launch an investigation. MPT’s lawsuit seeks permanent injunctive relief, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, and compensatory and punitive damages from Viceroy for defamation, civil conspiracy, tortious interference, private nuisance, and unjust enrichment. MPT is accusing Viceroy, which has published a number of reports linking it to Steward and the Malta fiasco, of “repeatedly publishing baseless allegations to drive down the company’s stock price”. American company Medical Properties Trust has instituted a lawsuit in the US federal courts over claims made by Viceroy Research, short sellers and apparent financial investigators, over what it says are bogus financial analysis reports linking it to Steward’s Malta hospitals debacle.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |