Your annual report matters to investors
To work out what your shares are worth, investors need a lot more than your past financial performance. They’ll want to assess your likely growth rate, the quality and experience of your management, your strategy and business model, the strength of your brand, your approach to corporate responsibility and a host of other factors not captured by your historical numbers.
In short, your annual report is your once-a-year chance to explain your company to the market.
Your annual report can influence your share price
Giving investors the information they need pays off. Research by FutureValue shows that the quality of a company’s narrative reporting correlates with its share price performance. This is not surprising, since:
- good narrative reporting helps investors understand your company and predict its performance. Investors hate uncertainty. The more they know about your business, the better they’ll be able to predict its performance as market conditions change. Greater investor confidence should mean better share price performance.
- what you write speaks volumes about the quality of your company and the quality of your thinking. For example, you can only write clearly about your strategy if you’ve thought clearly about your strategy in the first place. One of the key benefits of producing a good annual report is the additional rigour it imposes on your strategic processes.
Maximising the value of your annual report
I offer a detailed and impartial review of your most important investor document. You will get clear, actionable feedback, so you can make the time and money you invest in your report work harder.
In particular, I analyse your narrative content for:
- clarity – how well the report explains your investment case
- completeness – what needs to be added (or removed) to improve your narrative
- balance – whether your report provides the right level of detail
- structure – how well the narrative flows
The focus on corporate governance has never been greater but corporate reporting has not kept pace. My review also considers how well your report communicates your approach to governance, taking into account your content and its accessibility.
My review also covers:
- how well the design and imagery support your messages
- the effectiveness of your language and tone of voice
The annual report assessment is not a box-ticking exercise. Every one is a piece of bespoke research, designed to help you get the most from your annual report.
Book your annual report assessment
To find out more or to book your assessment, please contact me.
You should also take a look at my blog posts on corporate reporting.
