Trading halted after bogus release says Samsung acquires Fingerprint Cards for $650M

A bogus press release was published this morning announcing that Samsung had acquired Fingerprint Cards for $650 million.

Both companies have since confirmed that the release was false and that the Korean tech giant is not buying the Swedish fingerprint sensor manufacturer, and trading in the stock has now been halted.

After the news broke, Fingerprint Cards’ stock shot up 51 percent in the 17 minutes the company’s shares were traded this morning. Trading has now been suspended.

“The news in today’s media that Fingerprint Cards AB has been acquired by Samsung is incorrect,” Fingerprint Cards posted on its website this morning. “The previous press release was not sent by Fingerprint Cards AD. Trading in the share has been suspended. What has happened will be reported to the police and to the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority.”

Cision seems to have taken partial responsibility for the incident, posting an apology early this morning.

“A press release from Fingerprint Cards AB with the headline ‘Samsung Electronics to acquire Fingerprint Cards AB’ was distributed by Cision. The press release was incorrect,” Helen Rigamonti, Cision’s director of customer operations said in the post. “Cision apologizes to Fingerprint Cards AB and other stakeholders for this error.”

Despite the apology statement, Rigamonti told Business Week “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.”

This is certainly fishy, and as of yet, there are many questions that still need to be answered. Was this a deal that was let out of the bag early, or was it deliberately misleading?

Samsung has called the acquisition false, saying it’s not true and is a ‘groundless rumor.’

According to the Business Week report, Precise Biometrics, which saw a 43 percent gain following the press release, was also halted and trade in its stock were canceled. 

All copies of the misleading release seem to have been taken down at the time of writing this report.

Article Topics

acquisitions  |  fingerprint  |  Fingerprint Cards  |  Samsung  |  smartphone