The City regulator is ‘strongly’ asking all listed firms intending to publish preliminary financial statements in the next few days to hold off.

The Financial Conduct Authority’s intervention could affect Countrywide, which has said it would publish financial results before the end of this month although it has not given a date.

It could also affect Belvoir, due to publish results a week today, and The Property Franchise Group, due to publish the day after.

Hunters is also due to publish results soon, on April 2.

The FCA says that investors in capital markets rely on trustworthy information but that “the unprecedented events of the last couple of weeks mean that the basis on which companies are reporting and planning is changing rapidly”.

The FCA also says that the practice of issuing financial statements – in which companies routinely update investors on current trading outlooks – is putting pressure on businesses.

Countrywide, whose share price starts this week at 66p, last reported on its six months to the end of last June and had said it would deliver its full year results for 2019 “later this month”.

The deadline for an offer by LSL for Countrywide was to have been later today, but LSL has walked away from any deal. Since then, Countrywide has also lost its designate chief operating officer, Bruce Marsh, appointed last October but who has now decided against taking the job.