Adequate information on Fyffes' trading position was available to the market in early 2000 to allow ballpark estimates of its likely full-year losses, the High Court "insider dealing" case was told yesterday.
Richard Taffler, a professor of accounting and finance attached to Cranfield University in Britain, said the Irish market in particular did not seek to forecast first quarter results but would be interested in only the full-year picture.
He told Paul Gallagher, SC, for Fyffes, that there was no ballpark estimate available to the market at the end of January 2000, the conclusion of Fyffes' fiscal first quarter. He said it was not a relevant consideration because analysts would have been focusing on the full year, not the first quarter which was the least important period in Fyffes' trading year.
Prof Taffler quoted a Morgan Stanley Dean Witter research report of May 1999, which stated that "a strong stomach is necessary for enduring the volatility created by banana prices. Banana prices fluctuate wildly in both directions every year. Fruit companies must be viewed on the basis of a full year". He told Justice Mary Laffoy that first quarter results were not going to have, in market terms, the impact Mr Gallagher seemed to believe they should have had on Fyffes' share price because they were only one small part of its trading year.
Mr Gallagher yesterday concluded his cross-examination of Prof Taffler, who has been called as an expert for DCC in the action by Fyffes alleging insider dealing in connection with the €106 million sale of the DCC stake in Fyffes over three days in February 2000.
The action is against DCC, its chief executive Jim Flavin, and two DCC subsidiaries, S&L Investments and Lotus Green. All deny the claims and plead the sales were properly organised by Lotus Green, a Dutch resident DCC subsidiary to which beneficial ownership had been transferred in 1995 for tax reasons.
Earlier, on the 73rd day of the action, Prof Taffler agreed with Mr Gallagher that, when the company announced on March 20th, 2000, uncertainty as to whether the full-year figures could be reached, the reaction of the market had been "immediate".
Mr Gallagher suggested that if information contained in two company reports available to Mr Flavin had been made generally available, not just to analysts but to the entire market, fund managers, traders and everybody else, the reaction would have been equally immediate.
Prof Taffler said the market had reacted immediately on March 20th to the very clear profit warning "among other things".
He agreed the market clearly reacted far more strongly to a particular event such as the release of a profit warning.
On information emanating from the company having a significant effect on the market, Prof Taffler said one had to distinguish between new information and news.
On June 19th, 2000, the market effectively had not moved because all the information conveyed by management in the interim statement had already been known to the market.
As he recollected, there had been no significant or material movement on reaction to the interim announcement.
The case continues in the new law term before Ms Justice Laffoy.
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