FINANCIAL COMMUNICATION: FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICES - 2019 EDITION

66 3  z EVENTS ASSOCIATEDWITH A COMPANY’S BUSINESS Information regarding a company’s sales, production, research and development and, to a certain extent, employment-related issues, constitute, along with more strategic announcements (acquisitions or divestitures), the “newsflow” of an issuer, aimed at illustrating the implementation of its strategy and its image. The issuer must always make sure that the events it decides to communicate are material, in order to avoid saturating market participants by delivering them an excess of information without any mention of its relative importance. Thus, information of a commercial or technical nature, of local or specific interest (related to a sector or technology), which does not achieve a certain threshold of materiality (see below), need not be the subject of an effective and complete dissemination (because it does not qualify as regulatory information), and can just be made available on the issuer’s website. When an event related to a company’s business occurs, the issuer therefore assesses whether it should be disclosed to the market depending on whether the event is material or not and on the potential impact it may have on the share price of the issuer. The issuer can base its decision on the following criteria: n the expected consequences on financial performance (sales, margins, costs incurred); n the impact on the balance sheet structure (net debt, shareholders’ equity); n the estimated impact on the competitive position (gain or loss of market share, technological advances conferring a competitive edge, etc.) of the strategy (expansion into a new geographical area, diversification of the business, etc.); n the estimated social consequences (recruitment, organisational restructuring, etc.), especially on the geographical area concerned (country, region, etc.); n the business sector of the issuer (for example: the significance of patents for issuers in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, the significance of large contracts within the oil industry, etc.). SALES AND MARKETING This may concern the signing or loss of a contract, the failure of a debt buyback 105 , the gain or loss of a customer, the signing or loss of a commercial agreement or of a new partnership, or the termination of a partnership. Any such press release will provide: a strategic view and the presentation of the contract, commercial agreement or partnership and its impact on sales. An introduction of the customer or partner can also be included. 105 – AMF Enforcement Committee, SAN-2017, December 21, 2017. Sales and marketing: n ENGIE n VALLOUREC n VALLOUREC (2)