Tyro executives have spent the weekend fixing its outages and responding to a short report that shaved almost 12 per cent off its share price in an hour.

The report followed coverage in the the Financial Reviewof growing discontent among merchants that used Tyro payments terminals after more than ten days of outages that arose after a software installation.
Tyro told the stock exchange on January 13 that 19 per cent of merchants were “impacted” by the outage, which it said would be largely resolved by the end of last week.
The outage has shaved almost $500 million, or 30 per cent from the fintech’s market value since the issue came to light on January 7.
Tyro is scheduled to release its regular Monday update on transaction values, a disclosure it has had in place since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March. That release will give insights into the effect of the terminal outages.
The company has been praised in the past for stepping up its disclosure during the pandemic while other listed companies took advantage of temporary changes to requirements to pare back updates to the market.
But Viceroy analyst Gabe Bernarde told the Financial Review on Friday it’s disclosures relating to the terminal outages were “unacceptable.”
Viceroy’ report has again ignited the debate around short-seller reports being released inside trading hours, catching listed companies off-guard.
Company executives say their immediate responses are constrained or limited by continous disclosure obligations.
While activist short reports have exposed poor corporate governance, companies are proving more adept at winning back market trust, particularly in the technology sector.
In late October, Blue Orca published a short report on Seek Ltd claiming the Chinese online jobs site it majority owns – Zhaopin – was populated with fake adverts.
While the shares initially fell 8 per cent, Seek’s rebuttals, helped the share-market to retrace those losses. Seek shares are now 20 per cent higher than prior to the report’s release.
Logistics software firm, Wisetech has also largely beaten back claims made by activist short sellers, although at $27.73 its share price is lower than before the attacks began.