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MARSHALL, Mich., July 14, 2005.—Say what you will, the most important
aspect of an annual report to shareholders of a publicly held company is—its cover.
So says industry monitor Sid Cato, journalist and ex-corporate officer, in the just-released 262nd issue of his monthly Newsletter on Annual Reports: "If a report can't entice the recipient to open it and read it, it has failed its most basic task." Best cover cited by Cato? "Both the front and back covers of a Canadian company's 2004 book." He said Aliant ran upwards of 150 photographs of the children and grandchildren of employees of the telecom, "especially a memorable, ultra-close-up, on the cover." He said he continues to find inclusion of the legalistic 10-K in more than one in three (37.3%) 2004 reports "depressing; it's a Securities and Exchange Commission-required filing, never intended for public consumption." Cato introduced his monthly print newsletter in September 1983. Subscribers primarily are producers, here and abroad, of a company's "key corporate communiqué," as he assesses the annual report, "required of every publicly held corporation." |