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The price of Julius Baer bearer shares rose steadily from early January 2005, and there was also a significant increase in trading volumes. On 17 January 2005, Julius Baer announced that Michael P. Baer would be leaving the bank in the middle of the year owing to differences of opinion on strategy, and that a single-share structure would be introduced in order to open the bank up fully to public share ownership.
Both the resignation of Michael P. Baer and the introduction of the single-share structure are potentially price-sensitive facts, as defined in Art. 72 LR, which might bring about a substantial movement in share prices. The issuer must notify the public of such potentially price-sensitive facts as soon as it becomes aware of the main points of the facts in question. According to Art. 72 para. 3 LR, an issuer may postpone the disclosure of this information under certain circumstances and in order to maintain complete confidentiality. With this in mind, the SWX investigated, in particular, whether Julius Baer had ensured the complete confidentiality of the potentially price-sensitive facts up to their publication, as prescribed, and whether the rise in the share price prior to the announcement might have been the result of an information leak at the bank.
The SWX found no indication that Julius Baer had breached ad-hoc publicity regulations. According to the SWX enquiries, Julius Baer could have assumed that the confidentiality of the price-sensitive facts was assured. No breach of Art. 72 LR was thus committed with regard to the promulgation of the resignation of Michael P. Baer or the announcement of the launch of the single-share structure. The SWX has therefore suspended its preliminary enquiries with regard to ad-hoc publicity.
