By Stuart Condie
SYDNEY--Shares in Australia's Helia tumbled to their largest one-day loss in five years after the mortgage insurer flagged the likely loss of its contract with the country's largest bank.
The stock closed Monday 26% lower after Helia said that Commonwealth Bank had entered exclusive negotiations with one of its rivals. Insurance underwritten under the contact represented 44% of Helia's gross written premium in its last full fiscal year.
The sell-off wiped almost 340 million Australian dollars, equivalent to about US$213 million, from Helia's market capitalization. The slump left Helia as one of just seven companies in the S&P/ASX 200 benchmark index with a market cap of less than A$1 billion.
The only time the stock has lost more was in March 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic was generating huge swings in global equity markets. It lost almost 32% on March 19. 2020.
Helia announced the potential loss of the contract, which ends Dec. 31, three days after a market filing showed that Chief Executive Pauline Blight-Johnston had sold stock worth more than A$840,000 between March 14 and March 18.
Write to Stuart Condie at stuart.condie@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 24, 2025 01:22 ET (05:22 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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