4173 days ago
And so someone I respect told me yesterday that I was hated in the City. Not by everyone but in certain quarters. Tell me something I didn’t know. Apparently some folks feel that saying nasty things about companies, advisors, PR firms etc. is just despicable. “Other journalists don’t do it…why do you?” And it gets better.
Apparently this person was told by a well-respected City group not to be seen to work with me because I was being sued for libel by Sefton. To give them credit they did ask the City Group if they knew about the case and was told no. There was just the assumption that if listed company issues libel proceedings then the person it is suing must be a baddun.
Where do you start here? Without commenting on the specifics of this case I would point out that I have had legal proceedings threatened and commenced before. The companies who tried it on before have all disappeared or been censured (in the end) because they were liars or crooks or both. Any trade body/City group which in a blinkered fashion believes that companies always tell the truth and so without doing any research automatically sides with the company in such matters is frankly a joke organisation. Perhaps these folks have never heard of Robert Maxwell or Asil Nadir or Bernie Madoff? Some companies are bent…just accept it.
And so why write articles which point out that certain shares are overvalued, that certain companies are – if one analyses their published statements – running out of cash or that certain companies have issued RNS statements that are verifiably false or over optimistic? Let me think for about fifteen seconds:
