The crisis at IM Internationalmedia has deepened with the announcement this morning that Martin Schuermann, CEO of the Group's US subsidiary Intermedia Film Equities USA, has been suspended with immediate effect from his 'executive employment status'.

Schuermann had already stepped down from the IM board on July 25, but had continued to be responsible for the group's worldwide operations.

This latest turn of events comes after an IM subsidiary, IM Stopping Power GmbH, was forced to shut down production of Jan de Bont's $40m action thriller Stopping Power after the default of a key investor last week.

The future of IM's operations had already been put into question in the group's interim report for the first six months of 2007. The report had said that the 'available cash' had once more reached 'a critical size' and noted that 'the short-term and medium-term planning of the liquidity of the Internationalmedia Group is based upon the assumption that a certain number of films go into production and a certain number of library titles are licensed.'

'If some or all of these projects or licenses are not realised due to external (market conditions) or internal (management) reasons, and if the management is not able to generate adequate financial alternatives, liquidity shortages may occur within the Internationalmedia Group that can threaten is continued operations,' a risk report suggested.

IM's shares fell over 35% in value on trading during Friday after the Stopping Power announcement, but had stabilised on several exchanges when trading opened again on Monday morning.

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