Interpreting Company Reports For Dummies
by Alan Bonham, Ken Langdon, and Lita Epstein
Interpreting Company Reports For Dummies
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd The Atrium Southern Gate Chichester West Sussex PO19 8SQ England
E-mail (for orders and customer service enquires): cs-books@wiley.co.uk
Visit our Home Page on www.wiley.com
Copyright 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex, England
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T 4LP, UK, without the permission in writing of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, England, or emailed to permreq@wiley.co.uk, or faxed to (44) 1243 770620.
Trademarks: Wiley, the Wiley Publishing logo, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, A Reference for the Rest of Us!, The Dummies Way, Dummies Daily, The Fun and Easy Way, Dummies.com and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and other countries, and may not be used without written permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Wiley Publishing, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: The publisher, the author, AND ANYONE ELSE INVOLVED IN PREPARING THIS WORK make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. The fact that an organization or Website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization or Website may provide or recommendations it may make. Further, readers should be aware that Internet Websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.
For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002.
For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-470-51906-6
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd., Glasgow
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Authors
Alan Bonham: Since qualifying as a Chartered Accountant, most of Alans time has been spent training others. He was a Director at Andersons Tutors Limited where he prepared students for ICAEW exams. From there, he joined Neville Russell where he became Training Manager. He then spent 16 years as a freelance lecturer and training consultant specialising in audit and accounting topics.
Most recently, Alan was Director of Training for SWAT Ltd. As part of his role, he was responsible for the development of SWATs national programme of CPD training as well as presenting a number of courses himself. Alan had been Managing Director of Pentagon Training Ltd until the company was acquired by SWAT in October 2005.
Alan is now working again as a freelance lecturer he is one of the few lecturers who can make auditing interesting. He also advises firms on their audit procedures and offers practical help in achieving compliance in a cost-effective manner. He has also worked with non-accountants, and is the co-author with Ken Langdon of Smart Things to Know about Business Finance which also demystifies the language of finance.
Ken Langdon: With a background in technology, Ken has been a trainer and consultant to many of the computer majors around the world. He has lectured in the USA, Australia, and all over the Far East and Europe.
In particular he has taught finance for non-financial managers and worked hard on explaining how the slightly esoteric world of finance reflects the real life world of businesses.
He is the author of a number of books on this and related topics.
Lita Epstein ran the financial accounting lab when she worked as a teaching assistant as she completed her MBA programme at Emory Universitys Goizueta Business School. After receiving her MBA, she managed finances for a small, non-profit organisation, and the facilities management section of a large medical clinic.
Now she enjoys helping people develop good financial, investing, and tax planning skills. She designs and teaches online courses on topics such as investing for retirement, getting ready for tax time, and finance and investing for women. She is the author of Streetwise Crash Course MBA and Streetwise Retirement Planning (Adams Media Corporation). Lita is the co-author of Trading For Dummies (Wiley), and Teach Yourself Retirement Planning in 24 Hours (Penguin Putnam).
Lita was the content director for a financial services Web site, MostChoice.com and managed the Web site Investing for Women. She also wrote TipWorlds Mutual Fund Tip of the Day in addition to columns about mutual fund trends for numerous Web sites. As a Congressional press secretary, Lita gained first-hand knowledge about how to work within and around the federal bureaucracy, which gives her great insight into how government programmes work. In the past, Lita has been a daily newspaper reporter, a magazine editor, and an associate director for development at The Carter Center.
For fun, Lita enjoys scuba diving and is certified as an underwater photographer. She hikes, canoes, and enjoys surfing the Web to find its hidden treasures.
Dedication
Alan and Ken: We would like to acknowledge the loyal support of our good friends Britney and Sol.
Lita: I would like to thank my father, Jerome Kirschbrown, an auditor and savings and loan examiner, who helped to hone my financial skills and taught me to be leery of what I see in financial reports.
Authors Acknowledgements