Understanding the Corporate Annual Report: Nuts, Bolts and a Few Loose Screws - Softcover

Lyn Fraser; Aileen M. Ormiston

Softcover

ISBN 10: 013100431X ISBN 13: 9780131004313

Publisher: Pearson, 2002

Synopsis

Understanding the Corporate Annual Report: Nuts, Bolts, and A Few Loose Screws provides a clearly written, step-by-step guide to understanding corporate annual reports. Authors Fraser and Ormiston instruct readers on how to ignore the PR letters from the corporate management team, engaging graphics, and other “garnishes” that typically accompany current annual reports in order to focus on what really counts—a company's performance and financial health! Throughout the book, the authors examine management's attempts to manipulate earnings and other performance measures, and they explain what the numbers in the report really mean. Chapter titles include: I Told My Daughter Not to Invest in Enron; Earnings: Real and Imagined; Assets, Liabilities, and Equity: What a Firm Owes and Owns; Cash Flows: Operating, Financing, Investing; and a Comprehensive Analysis. For individuals trying to make sense—and dollars—out of corporations' annual reports.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Understanding the Corporate Annual Report: Nuts, Bolts, and a Few Loose Screws, by Lyn M. Fraser and Aileen Ormiston, provides a clearly written, step-by-step guide through the corporate annual report. Fraser and Ormiston cut through the window dressing and attempts by management to manipulate earnings and other performance measures and explain what the numbers and other information mean for purposes of making practical business decisions.

Now you can feel comfortable and confident reading and understanding corporate annual reports of companies in which you've invested. Understanding the Corporate Annual Report:

• cuts through complexities and confusions to help readers find and understand what they really need,
• provides tools for using annual reports to make important financial decisions, and
• takes a simple, straightforward approach that makes financial reports accessible to all readers, including those without business backgrounds.

About the Author:

Lyn M. Fraser has taught undergraduate and graduate classes in financial statement analysis at Texas A&M University and has conducted numerous seminars on the subject for executive development and continuing education courses. A Certified Public Accountant, she is the co-author with Aileen Ormiston of Understanding Financial Statements (Prentice Hall, 6th edition, 2001) and has published articles in the Journal of Accountancy, the Journal of Commercial Bank Lending, the Magazine of Bank Administration, and the Journal of Business Strategies. She has been recognized for Distinguished Achievement in Teaching by the Former Students Association at Texas A&M University and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Aileen Ormiston teaches accounting in the Business Department of Mesa Community College in Mesa, Arizona. She received her bachelor's degree in accounting from Michigan State University and a master's degree in finance from Texas A&M University. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Accounting Association, and the Institute, of Management Accountants. Mesa Community College was one of 13 universities and colleges that received a grant from the Accounting Education Change Commission, and Aileen was actively involved in developing the new accounting curriculum.

The authors' book, Understanding Financial Statements, has sold more than 140,000 copies.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pearson
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 013100431X
• ISBN 13: 9780131004313
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160