Shares in the world's third biggest food retailer Royal Ahold fell sharply on Friday as disappointing US sales figures and disclosure concerns combined to rattle already anxious investors.
Ahold, which owns the Netherlands' biggest supermarket chain but generates about 60 per cent of its turnover in the United States, said that sales in its core US food service business fell 6.1 per cent when the boost from acquisitions was removed.
The group published a surprise trading update and speculation was rife that chief executive Cees van der Hoeven had leaked these sales numbers to some analysts earlier in the week - raising fears Ahold could be subjected to a regulatory inquiry.
Ahold denied the numbers had been leaked and the Dutch market regulator declined comment.
"That is not correct," an Ahold spokesman said of talk that the numbers were leaked. "There were some presentations and he floated some soft numbers but the hard numbers were only published today."
Ahold, which reported its first net loss in almost 30 years in the second quarter, has taken a knock from difficult trading conditions and its enormous exposure to the world's biggest economy makes it vulnerable to any downturn there.
Nevertheless, Ahold maintained its outlook for 2002.
"The numbers are worse than expected, and expectations already were not very high but a big part of the problem is the way this all was done," said Lex Werkheim, asset manager at Eureffect in Amsterdam.
"I have no idea if van der Hoeven did leak some numbers or not but if I was an investor and not invited to this private party that people are talking about I would be very upset," he added.
Thanks to revenues from Alliant Foodservice, which Ahold acquired for $2.2 billion (€2.25bn) last year, US foodservice sales surged an overall 43.3 per cent to $4 billion but this failed to impress investors, who were concerned about underlying weakness.
Ahold, which is due to report full third-quarter results on 26 November, reported a 5.8 per cent rise in third-quarter group sales to €16.4 billion. Organic sales growth, excluding currency impact, was 1.5 per cent.
The Dutch group had said recently that second-half earnings would rise from a year ago, boosted by the integration of Alliant Foodservice.
Ahold's US Foodservice is now the second-largest food distributor to restaurants, hotels, healthcare institutions and sports facilities in the US after Sysco.
In the 13 European countries in which Ahold is active, sales increased by 6.6 per cent to €5.5 billion. Organic sales growth, excluding currency impact, was 4.8 per cent.