Aker BioMarine lies down – E24

Katrin Berntsen, communications director for Aker BioMarine, tells E24 that she and the company apologize for what happened Tuesday morning.

Aker BioMarine issued an announcement on the stock exchange at 08:10 on what the company called a “breakthrough”, both scientifically and commercially.

The launch of “Lysoveta” is the result of years of development and may provide significant revenue streams for Aker BioMarine for years to come.

The news sent Aker BioMarine’s share price up more than 10 percent after Børsen opened at 09:00. The shares ended the day up 13.6 percent at 101.50 kroner.

Therefore, the information was driving strongly.

While the stock exchange announcement came at 08:10, however, Finansavisen (login required) already had the news at 08:00, including an interview with CEO Matts Johansen.

Aker BioMarine informs E24 that the actual stock exchange announcement should arrive at 08:00, but was delayed until 08:10 due to technical issues.

There are strict requirements for listed companies that they must inform the market in a fair and open manner about events important to the company. One of the criteria for evaluating whether or not something should be listed on a stock exchange is precisely whether the information is driving prices.

The location of this threshold varies from company to company, depending on the size and novelty of the company.

Gave an interview before informing the market

Katrin Berntsen, communications director for Aker BioMarine, says the company ran into technical problems Tuesday morning when the message went out:

– We had a new user who did not log in (to post stock exchange announcements, journal.anm.) And we had to enlist the help of the Oslo Stock Exchange to manually post the ad, says Berntsen.

– It’s just to regret that this happened, continues Berntsen.

Aker BioMarine went public on Merkur Market in June and has announced that they want to be listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange.

-We had fantastic news to bring today, and this is something we have worked on for a long time and intensively, says Berntsen.

He says that the company wanted to get as broad as possible with novelty and that is why it entered into dialogue with the relevant media.

– When did you share information about the launch of the financial newspaper?

– About 7:15 a.m. early today, Berntsen says.

That Finansavisen received the information before the stock exchange announcement came out, says Aker BioMarine, happened because the journalist had no time later that day.

– Following an agreed assessment, we met at a time when the stock market was closed, Berntsen said.

– He was in dialogue with the Oslo Stock Exchange

– The news has moved the market a lot and is a key development for Aker BioMarine. What evaluations have you made when you have concluded that the content of such news is something that you can share with third parties before the market receives the information?

– Aker BioMarine did a thorough assessment of the categorization of this report and was also in dialogue with the Oslo Stock Exchange regarding this, says Berntsen and continues:

– The notification does not meet the conditions for inside information or “other information subject to regulatory information” that is required by the Securities Law. In our opinion, the only correct classification is “non-reportable press releases”.

It is not uncommon for companies to reach agreements with the press in advance, so E24’s stock commentator notes in a comment on the case..

As a general rule, this means that you arrange an interview date, without necessarily telling the press anything about the news to come.

E24 also had an interview agreement with Aker BioMarine on Tuesday. The deal was added some time after the stock exchange announcement.

– The information must be released immediately

Geir Harald Aase, Head of Communications for the Oslo Stock Exchange, says the Exchange does not comment on specific individual cases and individual companies.

In general, you are at the same time aware of the clear rules that apply:

– Listed companies have a duty to provide information that is linked to the provisions of the Securities Trading Law on what is considered inside information, says Aase and continues:

– This type of information must be published immediately and there is no opportunity to share inside information with journalists.

Recently, in September, the Oslo Stock Exchange fined the company SoftOx Solutions NOK 150,000 for violating the rules.

Børsen believed that the company informed the market about “entering into a distribution agreement in November 2019 too late” and that the company also shared “inside information with unauthorized persons by providing information about the agreement to journalists before publishing an advertisement in the stock market”.

However, there is a significant difference between SoftOx and Aker BioMarine, as SoftOx shared the information with “unauthorized persons” while the exchange was open.

Aker BioMarine says they reported the content while the Stock Exchange was closed.

– We have previously criticized companies in these types of cases, where privileged information has been shared with journalists before the information is published. We have also imposed fines in some cases, says Aase at the Oslo Stock Exchange.