THINKING ALOUD
Boards need to pay attention to their invisible balance sheet
When investors lose trust in a company, they also value it less
Add BT as a preferred source
EVERY board meeting begins with numbers. Revenue, margins, cash flow and return on equity.
Yet, the most valuable asset in many companies is missing from every financial statement: trust.
Accounting standards do not recognise it as an asset. Markets do. Ask any chief executive who has watched a share price fall not because earnings disappointed, but because investors no longer believed what management told them.
