Reporting the facts and figures: how companies deal with financial reports
When, and if, you get to the top of the corporate food chain and CEO appears next to your name, it may seem like a dream. You’ve made it. The elation hits and you excitedly think of the progression you can be the one to steer the company towards; and then you think about planning the future financial reports.
CEOs need to be the central hub of the business and the brain of the operation, but they also need to keep investors and owners happy, so ensuring a good financial report is critical. How the context behind those figures is presented, and when or if to make that information public, is equally important.
Financial reports are often dry of detail. This could be done for the sake of the press, as investors and owners are understandably unlikely to accept a lack of information, and it could be provided behind closed doors later. So, if anything, a hollow financial report will only buy a poor performing operator and its CEO a bit of time from investor scrutiny. Perhaps they hope they can sign a deal or improve fortunes in the time it takes to dig out and deliver those facts.
We always have our eyes out for a financial story in B2B gambling media, as the usual standard at Gambling Insider is to only report on the hard figures, not just percentages.
This is one area where operators and financial executives sometimes try to put a positive spin on a poor quarter. William Hill is one such example.
In November it provided a brief trading update. There is nothing wrong with being succinct; getting all the facts out in a clear, concise manner would actually be appreciated by investors, owners and reporters. But to only provide percentages does not mean much.
The operator announced a net growth in online revenue of 1%. A 4% increase in operator revenue was offset by a 4% fall in its international revenue sector. These small percentages make it seem like very little has improved at William Hill and explain why its CEO, Philip Bowcock, was moved on last summer.
For the full story, check out the Jan/Feb issue of Gambling Insider magazine.
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