The role of the jury is to make an overall assessment of the company’s reporting to the market in order to assess which companies best satisfy the requirements of shareholders and other readers. The market information assessed by the jury consisted mainly of annual reports.
Gambro, a rookie on the list of the best annual reports among large companies in Sweden, skyrocketed directly to first place. The company’s annual report satisfies virtually all of the requirements for good shareholder information. Among other strong points, the annual report includes a comprehensive review of the market situation for Gambro and its competitors, a well-developed risk section and a detailed account of the work conducted by the company’s Board of Directors.
After having been awarded a distinction for four consecutive years, ProfilGruppen was named the winner of the Small Companies class. ProfilGruppen presents an attractive, reader-friendly annual report with well-delineated sections about the company’s business, market, human resources and environment, as well as a risk analysis.
In the large company category, five distinctions were awarded for 2003. These went to AB Electrolux, Ratos AB, SAS AB, Securitas AB and AB SKF. In the small company category, distinctions were awarded to Broström AB, Renova AB, Sardus AB and VLT AB.
“The Best Financial Reporting contest is part of Stockholm Stock Exchange’s efforts to encourage listed companies to provide high-quality information. Among other activities, this is achieved by means of this contest, by providing training for the listed companies’ Boards members and senior executives and by monitoring the companies’ day-to-day operations. Stockholm Stock Exchange thanks the jury for its excellent work, which has been of great significance to the improvement of the annual reports of both private and public companies,” says Anders Ackebo, Head of Listing and Surveillance at Stockholm Stock Exchange, OMX Exchanges.
During this year’s competition, the 39th in succession, 297 companies were assessed. The contestants consisted of all of the companies listed on Stockholm Stock Exchange and 15 companies that competed at their own initiative. The jury consisted of Ulf Strömsten, chairman, Hans Edenhammar, Anders Haskel and Hans Johnsson. The dividing line between the “large” and “small” company classes consisted of a market capitalization (or reported equity in the case of non-listed companies) of SEK 2 billion on December 31, 2003.
