The company said in a statement that the trading halt would stay in place until the company made an announcement, which is expected before Monday.

Its shares were 12 cents when the trading halt took place.

Great Southern is the largest MIS company in Australia.

Its action comes two weeks after fellow MIS agribusiness company Timbercorp went into voluntary administration, BusinessDay reports.

At its annual meeting in February, the company foreshadowed a loss of $120-$130 million for the half year to March 31 mainly because of a big fall in MIS sales.

It put in place a five-point plan to meet its short-term priorities. This included the sale of non-core assets, including:

• The loan book;

• The sale of cattle assets to reduce debt;

• The consolidation of forestry operations;

• A cost-reduction program and

• A refocus of its MIS products on high-value timber projects.

Great Southern has more than 40,000 investors.

Timbercorp's administrators, KordaMentha, told Timbercorp's creditors and investor growers this week that the group has liabilities of $661 million to secured lenders, $250 million in loans and other debts, $14 million to unsecured creditors and $5 million in employee entitlements.

Administrator Mark Korda said the administration was particularly complex because it involved a group of 41 timbercorp companies, at least 5000 creditors, 700 lessors and 18,500 grower investors.