Six Continents admits gaffe over performance claim

Six continents yesterday admitted to an embarrassing blunder in its claim that it had outperformed the FTSE 100 share index.

In a statement, Six Continents conceded that information published less than 24 hours earlier had been "incorrect". It had made the claim in response to a threatened takeover bid from the serial entrepreneur Hugh Osmond.

One of its assertions was that it had outperformed the blue-chip index over the past 10 years in terms of total shareholder return, when in fact this was untrue.

The leisure giant, which already faces the ignominy of having its planned demerger upset by Mr Osmond's intervention, said: "The statement relating to the 10-year performance was incorrect." It blamed "an error in the data", which was compiled by a US-based outfit called FactSet.

Six Continents was also forced to shift the goalposts used in Thursday's statement to calculate total shareholder returns after it emerged that it would have also underperformed the FTSE 100 on a five-year basis, according to fresh data supplied by Datastream.

The group switched the date chosen to calculate its performance to 14 February from 12 February. This move – which coincided with a 33p rise in its share price – allowed it to claim that in terms of total return it had outperformed the FTSE 100 over the past one, two, three, four and, crucially, five years.

"The five-year performance to 12 February 2003 resulted in a marginal underperformance," it said in a note to an exchange announcement. Measured up to 14 February, the group squeezed through a 1.4 percentage point outperformance.

Six Continents refused to reveal the origin of the error, which is believed to have been unearthed by one of its City advisors. It is understood that the group received special dispensation from the Takeover Panel to correct the mistake.

In a letter to shareholders commenting on Mr Osmond's slated takeover bid, Sir Ian Prosser, Six Continents' chairman, accused him of seeking to "introduce uncertainty". Any bid from Mr Osmond would be made through his AIM-listed bid vehicle, Capital Management & Investment.

Sir Ian insisted that the company had made "a compelling case as to why the demerger is the best way to unlock value". He added: "CMI has made no offer but are merely using the increasingly common tactic of attempting to introduce uncertainty without having to take the responsibility of making a properly formulated and financed offer to shareholders."

CMI is expected to table its offer for Six Continents next week, in order to give investors time to mull it over ahead of a 12 March meeting to approve the demerger.

Six Continents' shares closed up 9.5p at 625p.