Categories: OLD Media Moves

Drug company changes earnings release after confusion

Mike Huckman, who covers drug companies for CNBC, writes Thursday that Bristol-Myers Squibb changed its earnings release after a number of media outlets reported that they missed analyst expectations.

Huckman wrote, “Here’s an excerpt from the very top of the press release BMY issued just after 7:36:59 ET this morning on the PR Newswire:

“Posts Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2007 Non-GAAP EPS of $0.33 and $1.38 from Continuing Operations ($0.35 and $1.48, including Discontinued Operations), Exceeding Top End of Non-GAAP Guidance Range”

“(GAAP stands for Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.)

“As a result, several news outlets including CNBC, Dow Jones, Associated Press and MarketWatch reported that BMY missed the 34-cent consensus by one cent.

“Curiously, when I just went to the Bristol-Myers Squibb web site to take another look at the press release, at first the page came up as ‘inactive.’ Okay, that could be some kind of computer snafu. Then a few seconds later the press release was back up, but guess what? The line that led to the widespread ‘confusion’ is gone! Disappeared. You can check it out for yourself.“

Read more here.Â Anybody else had a company change its earnings release after it was already released?

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.