The company disclosed its prospects on near-future possible developments in a stock exchange release on February 2, 2006. The development of demand for paper and its price and the situation concerning the employment contract negotiations were among other issues described in the prospect. Mainly positive but also negative future prospects were included in the release. No estimate was presented on the development of profitability in the stock exchange release. After this, the company’s executive management presented on several occasions (on February 2, February 23 and March 21, 2006) an estimate that the profitability and net operating profit will grow in 2006 compared to 2005. The company did not release this estimate with a stock exchange release. The Helsinki Stock Exchange requested the company to disclose the estimate on future profitability. The company assessed that it was not necessary to release the estimate on the basis that the presented estimate could be concluded from the previously released information.
The Stock Exchange rules require that any estimates of future prospects provided by a listed company and the bases of the estimates must be disclosed. Estimates relating to key performance figures are considered estimates of a company’s future prospects.
The Disciplinary Committee states that the reporting of a listed company should be coherent and the disclosed information should be simultaneously available to all investors.
The Committee also stated that the company did not comment on the development of profitability or business growth in 2006 in their annual account report on February 2, 2006. The company’s executive management later presented estimates on these key performance figures, which are central to any investor. In the estimates it was thus given substantially more information than previously was released. The Disciplinary Committee observed that the company should have disclosed these estimates with a stock exchange release making them available to all investors at the same time.
The Disciplinary Committee of the Helsinki Stock Exchange observed that this is an essential issue on grounds of principle. The Committee issued Stora Enso Oyj with a warning for breaching the rules of the stock exchange.