Companies should disclose non-financial information: PwC

This article is published on The Business Times, 22 August 2008.

For the benefits of investors in public listed companies, i agree with Ms Kok that these companies should not only reports on past financial performance but also valuable information on current projects to allow investors to evaluate the prospects of the company.

Past financial performance is not able to give investors the clear indication how well the company is going to perform in the future, instead what is important is the current activities or projects that they are engaging in that gives a clear indication of the direction of the company.

However even with non-financial reporting, it can not also prove that that company has better corporate governance as there may be selective information being released, or their budget projection and balance sheet may not have been done professionally that does not truly reflect the viability of the project. Moreover company will justify this as trade secrets and not disclosable.