Public Means Public!
As long as your company is privately owned, its financial information is considered confidential. But once your company is publicly traded, its financial information must be made available for the public to view, whether it is good or bad. At times, this can be embarrassing.
For example, Home Depot disclosed in their financial statements that for the five years ending on December 31, 2005, its chief executive, Arthur Blank, made over $200 million in salary and bonuses. Shareholders were irate because in the same five-year period the value of Home Depot stock had fallen. They wanted to know what the CEO had done to earn these large bonuses. Mr. Blank did not get fired for this and it was not illegal. But for a little while, he was very unpopular with shareholders!
One way a public company communicates with shareholders is through its annual report. This is usually a magazine-style publication that is mailed to all shareholders. Along with a letter from the CEO or president of the company, the report often contains beautiful color pictures of the company’s latest products along with pages and pages of financial information — all the financial reports and disclosures required by the SEC. Most companies today also post their annual reports on their websites for anyone to read.
Follow these links to read the annual reports posted on the Investor Relations pages of these public companies*:
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©2007 Business Professionals of America. All rights reserved
*If links are broken, please search their websites for the most current annual reports.