KARACHI, Sept 18: Polyron Limited — the troubled polyester filament yarn producing company — announced that the company had suspended production “temporarily” and laid off “such number of workers”, as were not immediately in demand.

The company cited “huge accumulation of finished stocks” as the reason for bringing production to a grinding halt, and added that plant would restart just as soon as the stock reached “a manageable level”.

Quoted at the stock market at under Rs2 for the price of 10- rupee share and having received no dividend since its listing in 1994, the shareholders in the company could not have received a more drearier news.

Deep in debts and deficit, shareholders have all along been waiting and watching for the company to take a turn for the better. Investors had anticipated bright prospects when in June 1994, the company offered its shares for public subscription.

The response was overwhelming; general public had contributed a sum of Rs2,586.9 million, which came to 38 times the offer of Rs67.5 million worth of equity. NIT also had taken up its allotted quota of 0.75 million shares. The scrip had that year touched record high at Rs33.50. To most shareholders in the company, all that must now look like a distant dream.