Babcock ‘may never know’ who was behind report that shocked shares
The boss of Babcock has admitted it “may never know” who is behind a shadowy analyst that released a report which caused its shares to drop.
The defence contractor took a hit on the markets last month after a report by Boatman Capital, an anonymous and unregistered entity purporting to be an analyst group, released a report which criticised several parts of Babcock’s operations – including its relationship with the Ministry of Defence, its biggest customer.
It claimed the FTSE 250 engineering was facing a raft of problems, claiming it was “burying bad news about its performance” and saying its leadership was not “not up to the job”.
Responding to the report earlier this month, Babcock said it contained “many false and malicious statements, which the group strongly refutes”.
“The source of the report is the big mystery,” Babcock’s chief executive, Archie Bethel, told the Sunday Telegraph. “We know the IP address the used, we know the type of PC they used, what we don’t know is who it was.”
“We are frustrated, but the bottom line is unless [Boatman] puts something else out we may never know,” Bethel added.
Boatman has not responded to requests for comment and the Financial Conduct Authority does not have any record of its existence.
Boatman Capital’s main website is highly stripped-down, containing little beyond the critical report and an image of Charon, the ferryman of in Greek mythology who transport people to the underworld.
Whoever is behind Boatman appears to have registered two web addresses – theboatmancapital.com and theboatmanresearch.com – at around the same time, in early July. Only the former is active. Both sites are registered to a company called WhoisGuard in Panama, which is being used to mask their actual ownership.
Limited metadata that can be pulled from other parts of its website suggests that the report was made using Microsoft Word on 11 October, and that the Charon photo was added via a screenshot taken using a Mac computer on the 10 October. At around the same time, it launched a Twitter account, which has not tweeted since mid-October.