Thursday, December 18, 2014

Lacuna in Annual Reports

The Annual Reports of listed Indian companies are able to hide a lot of information currently. This should be made available for the general investors to take a more sophisticated analysis of the businesses.
Some of the data that should be incorporated in the annual reports are:
1. Past 3 years and Current External Credit Rating (which is anyway publicly freely available)
2. Long term loans repayment schedules (Investors can then see how much the company will get further stressed in the years going ahead as repayments loom)
3. Securities provided to secure the loans
4. Market Valuation of the properties once in three years (This is anyway done for the sake of banks.
5. Promoter pledging and purpose for pledging
This will allow the investors understand/discover the true/appropriate market value of the companies)

As an investor, I would like to know my company better and these can be a better way for investors to understand their companies.