|
MARSHALL, Mich., Nov. 2, 2005.—Early in October, the New York Stock Exchange, via a vice president, announced it no longer will require publicly held companies to produce a printed annual report.
Henceforth, it said, the electronic filing required of companies would suffice. Her pronouncement was greeted with solid opposition among annual report producers—in Sid Cato's long-running (since September 1983) Newsletter on Annual Reports. Cato labeled the NYSE broadside "a bombshell." But, "Not surprisingly, perhaps, annual report producers, including corporate communications officers, received the NYSE broadside with little if any enthusiasm. At best." Editor Cato, journalist and ex-corporate officer, interviewed AR producers, many corporate officers, across the nation—from St. Louis to Pittsburgh to Atlanta to Cleveland to Carthage, Missouri. None was enthusiastic about "the threatened change," in Cato's words. "Indeed, one producer, Alcoa's Kevin G. Lowery, noted 'There's also the Securities and Exchange Commission rule that requires delivery of the annual report, so any change in the NYSE rule by itself would not necessarily eliminate the requirement' to print and distribute an annual report to shareholders."
|