Orco out of control

In Sacramento, California, Orco is a termite-extermination company. In Prague, Orco is the termite itself. It has already eaten away more than 90% of shareholder value, and the infested walls are about to collapse around the real-estate developer. Orco announced an unbelievable €391m loss yesterday on market capitalization of €47m. There are rumors of a criminal investigation in Paris, but shareholders see no evidence of official pest-control activity in Prague. Czech Business Weekly, Týden and Motejlek.com have been sounding the alarm for months. An obvious place to start would be to look into whether property values were inflated after Orco made acquisitions, whether properties were offloaded to related parties, and whether undeclared loans were made to CEO Jean- François Ott. Claims that Czech officials have no jurisdiction hold about as much water as the floorboards under Ott's feet. [Czech Republic France development]