Diversity in half-year reporting by listed companies remains high (survey 2011)

Published in our newsletter of 27 October 2011 – Following the announcements of the 2011 first-half results, we investigated the way in which companies that are listed on the NYSE Euronext (AEX, AMX and AScX) communicate their half-year results. When new legislation on the reporting of half-year results was introduced in 2009 (Wet op het financieel toezicht (Wft), article 5:25d paragraph 2), many companies were wondering how they would translate this into an H1 reporting format.

Our study shows that this legislation provides sufficient room for enormous variety in the communications around half-year results. The study covered 75 companies.

Key findings
More than half the companies studied (53%) chose to communicate their half-year results in a single document. This document contains all compulsory segments and is often presented as a report and published in full as a press release. In other words, they do not publish a separate press release and a separate - complete- half-year report; the report is the press release, or conversely the press release is the report. Some companies include graphics and images in this document, which means the layout is closer to a report than a press release. Ten percent of the companies separate the press release and the financial statements (all the tables and the explanatory notes), and although the press release refers to these statements, they are not a part of the release itself.

About one-third of all companies (36%) publish two separate documents, a press release and a report. There are considerable differences between the content and the size of the press releases. Some companies publish a press release with content that is virtually identical to that of the report, adding only background information, such as a company profile and key figures. In that case, the report is in fact a press release with layout and additions. Other companies publish a short press release containing only the financial highlights, and frequently add a quote from the CEO and an outlook. Any other information is only available in the report. This latter approach is mostly used by AEX funds, with nine of the 25 we surveyed publishing their half-year results in this way, compared with only one Midcap and one Smallcap company. Another striking difference between the larger and smaller funds is that many of the large funds – more than half - publish a separate report, while among the AMX and Smallcap funds this figure was 31% and 21% respectively.