Quarterly reporting is crucial to our stock market

ACCORDING to media reports, there are plans to review the quarterly reporting regime for listed companies. I have been an active retail investor in the local stock market for over 20 years. Since the introduction of quarterly reporting in 2003, I have found these regular reports to be extremely useful in keeping myself updated on my investments and to help me make good investment decisions.

Removing the quarterly reporting requirement would mean only semi-annual financial results, or a halving in the regularity of updated information that public shareholders receive. With technology advancing so rapidly, one would expect faster and more regular updates of information, rather than less regular. I believe going backwards in reporting regularity would be a blow to retail investors as they do not get private access to the management like many analysts and institutional investors do.

Companies typically produce internal monthly accounts which senior management and board members have access to. Major shareholders almost always have board representation and therefore already have up-to- date financial information. If companies reduce the regularity of reporting, information asymmetry between the major and minority shareholders will be accentuated.