Ltd. has shed more than four-fifths of its 700 Hong Kong staff and the future of those in surviving units is uncertain, remaining employees said.

"Most people have left,'' said one senior administrative officer yesterday.

Fewer than 80 in the stockbroking and fund management units of the group, which were still going concerns, were coming to work, Peregrine employees told Reuters.

But their future depended on the liquidators' ability to keep the teams together and find a buyer quickly.

Peregrine executives and Price Waterhouse members handling the liquidation of the company were not immediately available for comment.

The size of the staff needed to keep operations going in the company's solvent units was also still under review, a staff member said, indicating more could be laid off in the coming days.

Peregrine directors wound up the company on Monday and appointed Price Waterhouse as the provisional liquidator on Tuesday after the company's bankers and the Hong Kong government denied the company help over the weekend.

That last desperate attempt to save the company came after Bermuda-based Zurich Centre Investments Ltd. pulled out of a deal to subscribe to US$200 million in convertible bonds last week.

The main operating subsidiaries of the company were Peregrine Brokerage Ltd., Peregrine Capital Ltd., Peregrine Asset Management Ltd., Peregrine Fixed Income Ltd., PYK Securities (Hong Kong) Ltd., and property investment and trading unit Kwong Sang Hong International Ltd.

Staff in Peregrine Derivatives Ltd. and Peregrine Fixed Income Ltd. were "gone,'' said one employee.