Published Accounts Awards – DCC plc, UTV plc, and Focus Ireland amongst 2006 winners
Author:
Daisy Downes
DCC plc, UTV plc and Focus Ireland were among the companies recognised for excellence in financial reporting at this year's Leinster Society of Chartered Accountants Published Accounts Awards, which were announced on November 17th. DCC plc won the Large Quoted Companies Award, an award it also won in 2003, while UTV plc took the award for Small Quoted Companies. Focus Ireland won the award for Charities and Not for Profit Organisations.
This year's awards were presented by Mr Charlie McCreevy, European Commissioner for Internal Markets and Services.
In his address at the lunch, Commissioner McCreevy said: “The task of preparers of accounts for quoted companies has been made more challenging this year by the adoption of the new International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). IFRS aim to give increased transparency in accounts. But this must not be at the expense of legibility. Preparers have been grappling with the novelties of IFRS. Companies and investors will take some time to absorb and digest them. That is why I have repeatedly said we need a period of relative stability to let the new standards bed down.” Responding to recent suggestions from the big accounting firms who have recently joined forces to call for a radical overhaul of how companies report calling for a move to real-time, internet-based accounting, instead of quarterly statements and arguing that more non-financial information should be provided to give a fuller picture of companies' performance, the Commissioner said : “The accounting firms are right to provoke a debate. But I wonder whether a flood of information is really the answer. Of course, we must make use of new technological tools. Yet often the real problem in the digital age is how best to sift the mass of information that is available. How to find the needle in the haystack. Too much information may mean many investors will have to rely more heavily on professional analysts. In fact, I have to tell you that I am very glad we didn't go for quarterly reporting in Europe. I am not a fully paid-up member of the Transparency Freaks Club. I happen to believe that quarterly reporting can be more misleading than it is enlightening. And I'll tell you why: because the capacity to manipulate the results over three months is clearly much greater than it is over a year or even over 6 months. This is because of the potentially much greater impact in a 3 month reporting period - at least in proportionate terms - of deferring expenses or accruing them, of stuffing distribution channels or starving them, of boosting marketing spend or depressing it – with consequences that will only become evident in a P&L account after the unfortunate gullible market player has gone long or short on the shares on the back of the manipulated quarterly figures.
“And there is another reason as well why I am against quarterly reporting figures. Shareholders want managers to spend their time managing the business, not managing the media. Quarterly reports are preceded by quarterly trading statements. That means you have 8 statements a year – about one every six weeks.
This is a honeypot for spin doctors, wordsmiths and slide makers, and a ridiculous distraction for management. So let me assure you Europe will not be getting quarterly reporting during my watch.”
The full list of award winners is:
Large Quoted Companies: DCC plc S
mall Quoted Companies: UTV plc S
tatutory and Unquoted Large Entities: ESB Charities and
Not for Profit Organisations: Focus Ireland Design Award: Airtricity Corporate & Social Responsibility Reporting: CRH plc
Technology Award: IAWS plc
The Leinster Society of Chartered Accountants Published Accounts Awards are sponsored by the Irish Stock Exchange.