What is Annual Report?

The Annual Report (AR) is published annually by the company and is sent to shareholders and other interested parties. Annual reports are published towards the end of the financial year, and all data available in the annual report is dated to June 30. Annual reports are generally available in PDF format on the company's website (Investor section), and hard copies can also be obtained by contacting the company.

Because annual reports are published by the company, everything in them is considered official. Therefore, if the annual report contains false facts, a lawsuit can be filed against the company. By the way, the AP contains an auditor's certificate (signed, dated and stamped) certifying the inviolability of the financial data contained in the annual report.

The main readers of annual reports are potential investors and existing shareholders. The annual report should provide the most relevant information to investors and convey the company's key messages. For investors, the annual report should be the main way to find information about the company. Of course, there are many media sites that claim to provide financial information about companies, but investors should avoid seeking information from such sources. Remember that information directly from annual reports is more reliable.

You may wonder why media sites misrepresent company information. Well, it may not have been intentional, but other factors may have forced them to do so. For example, a company may want to include "depreciation" as an expense on its income statement, while a media site may want to include it in a separate headline. This would not affect the overall numbers, but it would disrupt the overall order of the data.