City A.M.'s taxing chat with Shire's PR people

Frehs off the back of their exclusive story on Shire Pharmaceuticals’s decision to re-register its head office outside the UK for tax reasons, City A.M. reports today that the decision came as a surprise to HM Revenue & Customs - and in the process turned the spotlight in Shire's seemingly inadequate communications team.

"Despite the fact that most companies consult HMRC as a courtesy about a week before making this sort of announcement, tax officials were left to find out about the move via a City A.M. exclusive on Tuesday."

The Capitalist section of City A.M. reportedly called Shire’s inhouse public relations team yesterday to confirm the snub, but it turned out to be a lengthier process than they had foresee, leading to a 'taxing' conversation with the a PR:

City AM: Did the Inland Revenue know about Shire’s decision before it was announced?

Shire: Errrr…well, we had discussions with them about the announcement.

City AM: Yes, but did they know about it beforehand?

Shire: Errrr… they know about it, yes.

City AM: I know they know about it now, but how about before it was announced?

City AM: Errrr…errrr…I don’t know the answer to that.

Not the most helpful PR then and I'm sure using the phrase "Errrr..." will soon be banned from being uttered by Shire's PR team.

Just another lesson that knowing your stuff and having a storng communciations team really does make any process a lot smoother, especially one as large as Shire's move away from the UK.