Japan's TEPCO shares plunge 20pc to new low

TOKYO: Shares in Japan's TEPCO hit an all-time low Thursday, falling 20 percent on uncertainty over government plans to ensure the company can meet compensation bills over the crisis at its nuclear plant.

Shares of the embattled Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) fell to 160 yen by noon, after hitting a new intraday low of 159 yen.

The shares have lost more than 90 percent of their value since the day before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which crippled cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, triggering reactor meltdowns.

Selling by short-term speculators has continued on ongoing concerns the utility may be forced into a court-backed restructuring process that will entail the delisting of its shares, analysts say.

"Even if the firm survives, it will not be able to generate shareholder returns so the share price will just steadily trend towards zero," a fund manager of a Japanese asset management told Dow Jones Newswires.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011