I've just noticed that the plc issued an official Press Release concerning Laurent Roberts's transfer on August 1. They cite the transfer fee as £10 million, and the contract duration as 5 years.

This leaves me curious as to why no Release was made regarding Craig Bellamy's signing - even though they made one concerning Andy O'Briens signing for only £1.5 million.

The company are required to disclose all 'material events' in this manner to shareholders. So, they viewed O'Brien's signing as 'material', but apparently not Bellamy's!

I just wonder whether there was something unusual about the transfer agreement that precluded the need to make a formal disclosure. Very curious indeed.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2001

Answers

Clarky, I first thought that we hadn't actually paid for him, but even if this were the case, I imagine we'd have had to have indicated the payment plan to the Stock Exchange. It wouldn't surprise me at all to see a couple of our "lesser" players going to Coventry at some point soon...maybe once our injuries have cleared up and we are through with this Intertoto stuff..

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2001

Bellamy is obviously our new "Stealth Striker".

It is odd isn't it? The SE rules presumably demand disclosure of "material" events. So who defines what "material" means? The club? It's strange really - football transfers are such public knowledge - much more so than the purchase of other assets by plc's. Well there's your question for this year's AGM used up Clarky!

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2001

Excuse my ignorance (so what's new?) about these matters. But why does the lack of a press release indicate a lack of informing the SE?? Anyway - from what I have seen, I don't think Bellamy's joined us yet ;-)

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2001

Nominate those lesser players here:

Rob Lee, Speed, Wazza

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2001

Screacher,

The issue the "Press Release" is intended to address is referred to as "selective disclosure". This is the release of information that could impact the company's share price to a restricted audience. This puts them in an advantageous position to trade the stock, and by inference all other shareholders at a disadvantage.

This is clearly a highly undesirable situation and must be avoided, or at least the potential minimised. Therefore there is a requirement for all public companies to issue a Press Release fully disclosing all 'material events' such that the information is made available to all shareholders at the same time.

The judgement on what is a 'material event' is left to the company to decide, but is generally any event that could impact the share price, and is therefore fairly wide-ranging.

Companies who get this judgement wrong are open to potentially serious recriminations, and therefore will usually err on the side of caution and use the rule "if in doubt, disclose". Most, but not all, obviously!

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2001

Thanks Clarky. Perhaps the Press Occifer was on holiday ;-) Seems strange that we should disclose on AO but not CB. No doubt somebody has a good reason..........

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2001