Press releases and reporting

aj · 1 Press releases and reporting Sat Feb 25, 2012 2:51 pm

aj

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SLT group achieves a profit of Rs. 4.8 billion in 2011
Sri Lanka Telecom Group has achieved a Profit After Tax of Rs. 4.78 billion during the last financial year ended on 31st December 2011.
This is an year on year growth of 21%.
http://www.news360.lk/business-finance/sri-lanka-news-telecom-4897-slt-group-achieves-a-profit-of-rs-4-8-billion-in-2011
Above looks like a press release.

Sri Lanka Telecom net down 17-pct
Sri Lanka Telecom Plc group said net profit for the December 2011 quarter fell 17 percent to 1.26 billion rupees from a year earlier, with revenues at core wireline business slowing, interim accounts showed.
http://lbo.lk/fullstory.php?nid=1726408706
Above looks like a factual report.

Last quarter report
http://www.cse.lk/cmt/upload_report_file/390_1329820577708.pdf

greedy · 2 Re: Press releases and reporting Sat Feb 25, 2012 3:08 pm

greedy

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on a year on year basis last quarter revenue has a growth of 4%. However the Profit decline is due to two reasons for this quarter...

1) Non recurring Item in 2010.... For the quarter ended 31/12/2010, SLT had an other income amounting to LKR1,055mn where as for the current period it was just LKR30mn. So obviously on a YoY basis LKR1,025mn drop from this item

2) Interest Cost 2011... It appears interest cost has increased to LKR471mn for the q/e 31/12/2011 from LKR173mn in Q/E 31/12/2010.

The higher interest cost could be due to increasing interest rates and additional capital expenditure this year. "According to SLT, it has invested Rs. 18 billion during the year 2011 as capital expenditure aimed at developing the firm’s broadband services. "

anubis · 3 Re: Press releases and reporting Sat Feb 25, 2012 3:09 pm

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According to the quarterly report:

Net profit for the last quarter 2011 = 1286 Mn
Net profit for the last quarter 2010 = 1542 Mn

Growth = ((1286 - 1542) / 1542) * 100 = -16.6 % (down)

Net profit for the year 2011 = 4781 Mn
Net profit for the year 2010 = 3943 Mn

Growth = ((4781 - 3943) / 3943) * 100 = 21.25 % (up)

So, both the reports are true. They are reporting on two different indicators.

Cheers!

anubis · 4 Re: Press releases and reporting Sat Feb 25, 2012 3:15 pm

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@greedy: Thanks for the explanation for the drop in the last quarter Smile

aj · 5 Re: Press releases and reporting Sat Feb 25, 2012 3:22 pm

aj

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Yes. Both reports are "true". But the thing is to see how all the negative things are pushed under the carpet and spinning only the positive numbers in the articles.
For example see CTC news articles. They always talk about how much CTC gave to the government coffers, nothing else comes to headline, even if the their profits have gone down.

anubis · 6 Re: Press releases and reporting Sat Feb 25, 2012 3:32 pm

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@aj: I don't think you can expect anything more than that from companies. As an investor, it's up to you to dig in and find out the facts.

Cheers!

anubis · 7 Re: Press releases and reporting Sat Feb 25, 2012 3:40 pm

anubis

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OK, I just realized aj was trying to convey the difference between "press releases" and "reporting" with this example. For some reason I thought it was a question about the difference in reported quantities.

Sorry about the confusion, I understand your point now Smile

Cheers!