Trading in the shares of Argus Group Holdings Ltd. is likely to be halted for around six weeks after the company gave insufficient notice of its annual general meeting.

The insurer and investment company announced yesterday that the Bermuda Stock Exchange had granted its request for a voluntary suspension of trading "until this matter can be rectified".

Gerald Simons, president and chief executive officer of the Argus Group, said: "We are currently investigating the adequacy of the notice given for annual general meetings and have therefore postponed this year's annual general meeting.

"In the meantime, we have applied to the Bermuda Stock Exchange to suspend trading in Argus shares until this matter has been resolved.

"We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and hope to bring this matter to a close over the next six weeks. We will communicate directly with shareholders once a new date for the 2010 annual general meeting has been established.

"This does not affect the day-to-day operations of the company in any way and business continues as usual at Argus."

Argus explained that the problem was with its own by-laws which require that shareholders receive ten days' notice of the AGM.

On July 21, Argus announced that it planned to schedule its AGM for Thursday, August 26, after it became aware that it may not have given sufficient notice to shareholders of its orginally planned AGM for July 22.