Now it’s normally my esteemed colleague, Nick Topazio who talks about company reporting, but I’ve managed to stick my oar in of late on account of getting involved in governance reporting.

Just before Christmas, I attended a conference on financial reporting that contained a very interesting segment from a leading sell-side analyst¹.  The content of his talk was what do analysts want from financial reports.  He quite frankly said that ‘they don't know 50% of time'.  However, there followed 45 minutes or so of very useful insight that those preparing or starting to think about annual statements might like to bear in mind.