I though there was going to be another reverse split, but I was wrong. AIB (Allied Irish Banks) elected to delist itself from the NYSE after reaching an all time low of $0.68/share (or $0.136 before taking the reverse split of 1:5 back in February into consideration).

AIB has been trading in the NYSE since January of 1991 where it started trading at $29, and has reached an all time high of $313 (both numbers are when taking the reverse split into consideration) back in February of 2007. The stock then started collapsing because of the Irish debts problem. AIB was bailed out by the Irish government last year (the Irish government technically bought AIB). The stock fell below the necessary $1 level for the first time in December of 2010, which means that back then it was below the minimum price level to maintain listing at the NYSE. AIB elected to do a reverse split in February of 2011. In August of 2011, the stock started trading below the $1 level again for 3 weeks, until AIB decided to pull the plug and get out of the US stock market.

I hate to see these things happen, but in this industry, there is no such thing as mercy. Investors decided to kill AIB and they did, driving its market cap from about $400 billion to less than a billion in just 4 years and a half.

Finally, take a look at AIB’s chart on Google finance, as probably you won’t have the chance to see it again on Google:

I can only say farewell, and for many investors, AIB was a joyful ride most of the times. You will be missed by many investors. I do wonder though what happens to one’s shares when a stock gets delisted. I guess it’s the topic of yet another article on fadi.el-eter.com!

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