 |  Periodic editorials concerning everything from the very worst industry—from an annual report standpoint, that is—to what's wrong with the Fourth Estate. Reporters who can't hit an accuracy with a cannon. |
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| Periodic editorials concerning everything from the very worst industry—from an annual report standpoint, that is—to what's wrong with the Fourth Estate. Reporters who can't hit an accuracy with a cannon. |
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"Do you see annual reports from any place else? Or just from this
country?" Well, yes. Thanks in no small part to one Dave Mielke.
A youngish American asked the question one recent Saturday night, trying to make conversation. "Do I see annuals from just the U.S.? Ah—no." From around the world, I informed him. It started me thinking about how I first learned—from a man whose path continues to cross mine, and vice versa—that annuals were produced by corporations all over the world. Weren't, in other words, limited to the United States. Soon after I moved my base of operations to Wisconsin from my longtime home in Chicago, David Mielke phoned. Dave now is dean of the Seidman School of Business at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Mich., less than an hour's drive from my current headquarters in Kalamazoo. Back then, he was at Marquette University in Milwaukee. He saw me quoted on Page one of the Wall Street Journal, in its "Heard on the Street" column (Sept. 9, 1987, if my records are complete), and invited me to speak to business students. He recalls that I spoke to the class three years in a row. When, about five years ago, I was invited yet another time to appear before Marquette U.'s MBA class, I had forgotten the pivotal role Mieke had played in my pursuit—until, that is, we had breakfast. To which he brought another batch of non-North American annuals. It all came back to me—how mind-boggling it was initially (back in 1987) to see annuals from a Polish bank, from East African Breweries in Nairobi, from Italy's Benetton, Germany's Daimler, France's Nestle', Pakistan's Murree Brewery, Not to forget Grand Metropolitan, Guiness, Volkswagen and Telefonica de Espana. Later, how exciting to savor the annual of a brewer of fine champagne based in the Czech Republic, Germany's Deutsche Bank, Batelco, a Bahrain telecommunications company, Finland's UPM-Kymmene, Tyco International, officially headquartered in Bermuda. Also, an Australian brewery and a New Zealand-based energy company. The year-after-year marvelous product of London-based Reuters, the financial and business news agency. Japan's TDK. The Netherlands' Akzo Nobel, Norway's I.M. Skaugen, Stockholm's SwedBank. Even before meeting Dave Mielke, I had named AB Volvo's report world's second best—this back in 1983, when I began selecting the world's best and worst. (Two years later, Sweden's Volvo tied for second place again.) Back then, the percentage of non-North American reports was minuscule. At most, six in 100. Today, it stands at 11.3 percent— one in nine of the annuals I receive and analyze in depth as a contributing editor to Chief Executive. Denmark's Topdanmark. That brewery in Kenya. British Petroleum. A diversified Australian-based paper company. A public utility in the Philippines. U.K.-based Lloyds Bank, one of the few in the world that not only identifies its summary report as incomplete, but informs the stockholder that "readers of this short form report should not make investment decisions based on it solely." Of all the non-North American annuals, few rise to the top—by my standards, of course. An exception: Reuters, last seen in 10th place among 1997s. Canada's Bruncor (now Aliant), No. 4 in 1998, world's best—with a perfect score of 135 points—a year earlier. So non-U.S. reports anchored the '97 list—holding both the top and bottom positions. Bookends, you might say. This year's crop includes Israel's DSP Group. I recalled, off the top of my head, that its 2000 report consisted visually of to-me "big, bold meaningless photographs." Its producer emailed that "The photos of nature are a symbol that our technology...is, in a way, a mirror of nature." "The stuff we make is so abstract it's nearly impossible to photograph it...so I chose this path." Whatever. That aside, imagine Sid Cato's world of annual reports if Dave Mielke* hadn't introduced me, nearly a decade and a half ago, to those produced around the entire world, not just in America. * Sid's now a member of the advisory board of Mielke's business school.
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