Corporate Travel Management's Suspension: How Fund Managers Marked It Down

A European overcharging scandal has kept the stock suspended for over a year, with long-time short sellers among the few to profit from the collapse.

27 Aug 2026 · 4 min read

Corporate Travel Management has been suspended from ASX trading since August 2025 after uncovering a customer overcharging problem in its European business that started at an estimated $157 million and has since grown worse, and while the shares have never officially resumed trading, unofficial grey-market quotes have shown a collapse of 90 percent or more from the $16.07 they last traded at, a fall that turned some of the ASX's most persistent short sellers into the year's biggest winners on the stock.

From a promising recovery to a trading halt

Forager Funds first invested in Corporate Travel in August 2024, at the height of broader concerns about corporate travel demand worldwide, after the company's European division had already disappointed investors when promised contract revenue failed to materialise. Forager said the business appeared to be well on its way to recovery and the investment thesis was on track, right up until the company halted trading in August 2025 and announced that a material restatement of its financials would be required.

The overcharging scandal deepens

Wilson Asset Management reported in November that further detail from the company's UK financial statements review revealed plans to reverse around £77.6 million of overstated revenue across FY2023 to FY2025, withdraw FY2025 guidance entirely and restate prior-period accounts, with audited FY2025 financial statements not to be lodged that year. Forager Funds put the scale in dollar terms: around £78 million, or $157 million, had been overcharged on European contracts over the prior three years, refunds would need to be issued, the head of the European business had been stood down, and a resumption of trading appeared months away at best. Firetrail Investments said the historic financial reporting problems were worse than the market had expected and contrary to the company's own prior disclosures, prompting its independent pricing committee to cut the stock's valuation for fund unit pricing purposes.

Funds wrote the value down step by step

Spheria Asset Management applied an initial 30 percent write-down to $11.24 a share after the August 2025 suspension, then cut that valuation further to $5.00 a share, almost 70 percent below the last traded price, once the company's November update confirmed the scale of the problem. Elston Asset Management wrote down its holding by a further 50 percent in December after management confirmed the restatement issues were far more serious than previously suggested, with the stock still in a trading halt. Paradice Investment Management said it had never owned the stock, having flagged red flags in the accounts that failed the first stage of its investment process, and benefited in relative performance once Corporate Travel was removed from its benchmark at zero weight. Yarra Capital Management confirmed the stock was removed from the ASX200 index in December, while ECP Asset Management said an independent review by KPMG remained ongoing into a confirmed UK revenue-recognition issue requiring customer refunds.

Around £78 million ($157 million) was overcharged on European contracts over the past three years and refunds will need to be issued.

— Forager Funds, Monthly Report, November 2025

Short sellers who saw it coming cash in

Solaris Investment Management had been shorting Corporate Travel since 2023 over concerns about the durability, quality and risk profile of its earnings, and closed the position off-market in December at $3.50 a share, roughly 80 percent below the last traded price at the time, calling it a clean exit once the investment case had played out and describing it as the fund's standout outright short. Totus Capital closed part of its short position in February, and QVG Capital described spending June trying to buy shares from sellers offering the stock at $1.50, a 90 percent discount to $16.07, only for the price to fall further once the company missed a lender-imposed June 30 deadline to return to the ASX, at which point QVG bought back in at 50 cents a share, a 97 percent discount.

Strip out the customer overcharging, and this isn't a profitable enterprise.

— GCQ Funds Management, Article, July 2026

The damage keeps growing

Lennon Capital Partners told clients in May it had written down almost all of its exposure after the company admitted it had overcharged British customers nearly $50 million more than first estimated, and ECP Asset Management confirmed it also wrote down its valuation in May, by which point most other firms had already largely given up on their positions.

What happens next depends on developments outside the usual quarterly reporting cycle: whether and when Corporate Travel returns to official ASX trading after missing its lender-imposed deadline, the outcome of the ongoing KPMG review and the customer refund process it is expected to trigger, and whether the underlying travel management business retains enough earnings power once the overcharged revenue is fully stripped out to justify a return to normal trading.