For the seventh time the Accounting and Tax Institute announced results of “The Best Annual Report” competition, rewarding the best annual report in 2011 according to the IAS and IFRS. The competition was organised under the patronage of the Polish Insurance Association.
This competition has only winners as even the fact of participation in it clearly shows that a company’s management board aims at pursuing a transparent information policy – and this is one of the greatest added values of “The Best Annual Report”. Moreover, each of the participating companies receives a detailed evaluation spread sheet with notes from the Competition Jury members, which helps to improve the Annual Report year after year. In this way, the Accounting and Tax Institute wants to fulfil an educational function. Up to date experience indicates that a number of companies which followed the advice of the Competition Jury moved up in the rankings – from low positions to receiving honourable mentions and awards.
This year, a good example of the above-mentioned process is the annual report submitted by PKN Orlen S.A. Annual reports of companies which took part in the competition for the first time (such as PZU S.A.) and the companies still preparing for their debut (such as Bank Pocztowy S.A.) are also worthy of note.
Four years ago we added another category to our competition, “The Best On-line Annual Report”. Not all public companies understand that nowadays Internet is the fastest information source and, similarly as in the paper version, the annual report published on-line should constitute a useful source of information both for the shareholder and the investor. In other words, its specific content should be presented clearly, taking advantage of the opportunities created by IT systems. This year, we are witnessing a real boom of new financial portals presenting annual reports on-line in an interactive or cross-disciplinary versions. The annual reports of such banks as BRE Bank S.A. and ING Bank Śląski S.A. are also worth mentioning, along with the reports presented by KGHM Polska Miedź S.A.
