Promentum rejects ‘blame’ report

“This company’s disappointing result for last year was as a consequence of a number of issues, some of which related to the shortfall in sales to PMP. This is a fact,” he writes in a letter to the publisher.

“However, you have chosen to misconstrue that fact as being an attempt on our part to allocate blame, which I find highly offensive. This company is entirely responsible for the results it delivers to shareholders, good or bad, and there has never been any inference to the contrary. Therefore your suggestion that we are seeking to blame our largest and most important customer for the difficulties we experienced last year is simply wrong.”

[From the Publisher; Semantics are important, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Ian Parker is rightly angry at what he perceives as a report that has him ‘blaming’ his largest customer and shareholder for Promentum’s difficult year. That was not the intention of the report, which was partly to highlight the shortfall in the amount of PMP’s sheetfed orders to Promentum during the year. As this was reported in the company’s annual report it was appropriate for us make note of it. However it was not intended to paint Promentum management as ‘blaming’ them for the subsequent result.

This inference is wholeheartedly withdrawn and I regret any confusion it may have caused.]