Friday, May 29, 2009

Why Is Schering-Plough's "Investor FAQ" Archive Page No Longer Indexed on Its Site?


Only yesterday, inside a post of mine, I hosted three links to various pages and PDF documents that reside on the "Investor FAQ" page [inside the "Investor Relations" Section] of the Schering-Plough Corporate Website. This is a page to which Kenilworth added new material, only yesterday. And tonight, finding this new material just got tougher. Hmmm.

While these pages are all still "there" -- they are no longer on the Corporate Sitemap, nor are they listed in the "Left Sidebar" -- of available sub-pages. Odd. Now, to see that these links still work, click below on the three links, as I posted them, verbatim, yesterday:

. . . .Kenilworth also issued an overnight "Investor FAQs" (PDF file) document.

Because Schering-Plough has chosen to speak about these presumably material matters, it would be fair to ask whether Schering-Plough's view is that there is nothing material to report about monthly IMS 'scrip data on the Cholesterol Franchise Joint Venture, Vytorin and Zetia. For thirteen consecutive months, ending in on January 20, 2009, Schering-Plough provided updates on these IMS monthly trends. It then said that it would stop doing so, as trends were "generally stabilizing". . . .

Yep. Click those three links -- the pages are all still "there". Now, look at these screen-caps, from mere moments ago [Click each image, to see full-sized version]:



[Click this link to verify that the above-page appears just that way, in full -- on the corporate website. If one clicks on "Investor FAQ", in the right-hand column -- the below "404 Error -- Page Not Found" is returned:]



[Click this link to verify that the top of the above-page returns this error, on the corporate website.]




[Again, click this link to verify that the above-page appears on the corporate website.]




[Once more, click this link to verify that the above-page appears on the corporate website.]


Now -- just to be sure -- go back and click the three links in the blue blockquoted text I set, from yesterday, up top. Yep. The documents are there -- just not shown, in the index.

Quite. A. Puzzlement. No?

Honestly -- I cannot help but wonder whether it is the fact that 13 months of Vytorin/Zetia Monthly IMS data reside there -- then, starting with February 2009, an abrupt halt, which lasted for two months -- then, Schering-Plough disclosed (on its Q1 2009 earnings conference call) a sequential quarterly 14.2 percent U.S. "down-bubble" -- despite January 20, 2009 assurances (And February 3, 2009 assurances) of "generally stabilizing" monthly IMS 'scrip trends, for Vytorin and Zetia. That is what CEO Hassan said, on the February 3, 2009 call. Could this explain the index removals? I can think of few other plausible reasons to move the pages off the index, and site map.

On January 20, and February 3, 2009, CEO Hassan told the world that the cholesterol franchise sales decline had "generally stabilized" -- and he would no longer report monthly IMS data -- as a way of informing the equity markets, in a more timely fashion, of what Schering's prospects might hold. Then came the March 9, 2009 proposed reverse merger announcement. Then the Q1 earnings call (and my semi-live-blog of it, under that link). What would the exchange ratios have been, on March 9, 2009, had the equity markets seen February 2009 Monthly IMS Data? What would have been the price, had the equity markets known of this continuing monthly deterioration in the the sales revenue, and thus fortunes, of Vytorin/Zetia? A deterioration that Mr. Hassan had said, a month earlier, was ending. Remember, Mr. Hassan did not stop receiving the IMS monthly updates -- he just stopped disclosing them. I think the ENHANCE plaintiffs' class-action securities lawyers will be interested in these facts.

It does seem, at first blush, quite plausible that Schering-Plough would want to make these specific pages harder to retrieve -- why leave that "crumb-trail" for the ENHANCE securities fraud class action plaintiffs' lawyers to find? [To say nothing of the staff at Corp. Fin., or Enforcement -- over at the SEC.]

Well -- that "crumb-trail" is here, now. Permanently. You may bank on it.

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