Baidu Stock Drops. It’s One of 5 Stocks Added to the SEC’s Delisting Watchlist.

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Baidu

inventory was dropping Thursday after U.S. regulators added the Chinese language search big to its rising record of firms that might be faraway from American inventory exchanges.

The Securities and Change Fee on Wednesday added Baidu (ticker: BIDU) and 4 different Chinese language firms to a provisional watchlist of overseas firms that face delisting in the event that they don’t enable U.S. regulators to assessment their audits for 3 consecutive years. Chinese language legislation at the moment forbids firms from doing so.

Baidu’s shares in Hong Kong fell 3.4%. American depositary receipts of Baidu had been down 2% in premarket Thursday after falling 2.6% on Wednesday.

In an announcement on Thursday, Baidu mentioned that it understood the SEC’s motion might have resulted from the submitting of its annual report on Kind 20-F for the fiscal yr ended Dec 31, 2021.

“The Firm understands the SEC made such identification pursuant to the [Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act] and its implementation guidelines issued thereunder, and this means that the SEC determines that the Firm used an auditor whose working paper can’t be inspected or investigated fully by the Public Firm Accounting Oversight Board.”

“The Firm has been actively exploring doable options,” Baidu mentioned within the assertion, including that it’ll proceed to adjust to relevant legal guidelines and laws in each China and the U.S. and “try to keep up itslisting standing on each Nasdaq and The Inventory Change of Hong Kong Restricted.”

The SEC additionally added on-line brokerage platform

Futu Holdings

(FUTU), aquaculture gear supplier 

Nocera

(NCRA), biopharmaceutical firm 

Casi Prescription drugs

(CASI), and video streaming platform

iQIYI

(IQ) to its provisional record for potential delistings, bringing the whole variety of firms recognized by the regulator to 11.

The SEC’s delisting push concentrating on Chinese language firms provides additional uncertainty to risky Chinese language tech shares, which have been underneath strain following Beijing’s regulatory crackdowns.

Write to Lina Saigol at lina.saigol@dowjones.com