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MARSHALL, Mich., Oct. 1, 2003.—Opposition is growing to the current trend
toward "down-and-dirty," information-devoid, uninviting annual reports to shareholders.
As he begins the 20th year of publishing his monthly Newsletter on Annual Reports, Editor Sid Cato said he doesn't detect a lot of positives concerning what he calls "the key corporate communiqué." The good news, though, he said, "is that several corporate communications officers endorse the full-bodied annual report in preference to a report that's bare bones." Cato said his computer monitoring shows one in five reports on the year (2002) essentially was little more than the legalistic Form 10-K. The 10-K is required, of U.S. corporations at least, for routine filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, "not for dissemination to stockholders as main body of the key corporate communiqué," said the journalist, a former corporate officer, in his Issue No. 242—every month since September 1983. |