Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Cision AB, a Swedish distributor of press releases, is investigating why it published an “incorrect” statement that said Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) had agreed to buy Swedish technology company Fingerprint Cards (FINGB) AB.
“We are right now investigating what happened,” Helen Rigamonti, director of customer operations at Stockholm-based Cision, said in a phone interview. “We are looking into our procedures, but we followed all of our security procedures and we can’t exactly tell you what happened as of now.”
A contact person at Fingerprint Cards had sent the release to Cision, Rigamonti said. Fingerprint Cards said it didn’t send the release and it would report the incident to the police and the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, according to a statement.
Shares of Fingerprint Cards, a maker of biometric security solutions, jumped as much as 51 percent in Stockholm and Swedish peer Precise Biometrics AB (PREC) also soared after the press release said Samsung had agreed to a $650 million takeover.
“The press release was incorrect. Cision apologizes to Fingerprint Cards AB and other stakeholders for this error,” Cision said in a statement. Calls to Fingerprint Cards for further comment weren’t immediately returned.
Jason Kim, a spokesman for Samsung, said he was unaware of any such deal and that he would confer with colleagues. Chenny Kim, a spokeswoman at Samsung, later sent a text message saying “it’s not true.”
Shares of Gothenburg, Sweden-based Fingerprint Cards were halted after the jump. Precise Biometrics pared gains, advancing 3.8 percent to 2.17 kronor at 11:39 a.m. in Stockholm. Cision declined 3.5 percent to 36 kronor.
Fingerprint Cards and Precise Biometrics have soared this year amid predictions that more smartphones will be equipped with fingerprint-reading technology after Apple Inc. (AAPL:US) added such sensors to its latest iPhone model.
To contact the reporter on this story: Adam Ewing in Stockholm at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ville Heiskanen at [email protected]
“We are right now investigating what happened,” Helen Rigamonti, director of customer operations at Stockholm-based Cision, said in a phone interview. “We are looking into our procedures, but we followed all of our security procedures and we can’t exactly tell you what happened as of now.”
A contact person at Fingerprint Cards had sent the release to Cision, Rigamonti said. Fingerprint Cards said it didn’t send the release and it would report the incident to the police and the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, according to a statement.
Shares of Fingerprint Cards, a maker of biometric security solutions, jumped as much as 51 percent in Stockholm and Swedish peer Precise Biometrics AB (PREC) also soared after the press release said Samsung had agreed to a $650 million takeover.
“The press release was incorrect. Cision apologizes to Fingerprint Cards AB and other stakeholders for this error,” Cision said in a statement. Calls to Fingerprint Cards for further comment weren’t immediately returned.
Jason Kim, a spokesman for Samsung, said he was unaware of any such deal and that he would confer with colleagues. Chenny Kim, a spokeswoman at Samsung, later sent a text message saying “it’s not true.”
Shares of Gothenburg, Sweden-based Fingerprint Cards were halted after the jump. Precise Biometrics pared gains, advancing 3.8 percent to 2.17 kronor at 11:39 a.m. in Stockholm. Cision declined 3.5 percent to 36 kronor.
Fingerprint Cards and Precise Biometrics have soared this year amid predictions that more smartphones will be equipped with fingerprint-reading technology after Apple Inc. (AAPL:US) added such sensors to its latest iPhone model.
To contact the reporter on this story: Adam Ewing in Stockholm at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ville Heiskanen at [email protected]