(Reuters) -A U.S. court on Wednesday denied AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc’s request to lift a status quo order, which was necessary to proceed with the conversion of the company’s preferred stock into common shares.
“The parties offer no good cause to lift the status quo order,” Delaware Chancery Court judge Morgan Zurn wrote in the ruling.
The theater operator did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
AMC listed the preferred shares under the symbol “APE” in a nod to Reddit’s wallstreetbets stock trading forum, where participants often describe themselves as apes.
The preferred shares have lost over 70% since they were issued in August as part of a plan to pay down the company’s debt.
AMC investors had sued the company accusing it and several of its directors of violating a law by creating the preferred shares in an attempt to “eviscerate” the voting power of common stockholders who had not supported the issuing of new shares.
Earlier this week, AMC said it had entered into a binding settlement with some investors and that it would ask a judge to lift a related status quo order, in order to complete the stock conversion.
AMC’s shares rose 9.4% in premarket trading on Thursday, while preferred APE stock dropped 10.5%.
(Reporting by Akriti Sharma and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Eva Mathews; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)
