◆ SpookStack

ae ee ahem ae alee, + sr ety ae a ner ape men ceceneis ne APRIL 14, 1947 How Much Did ve Make This Time? Patience, a degree in accounting, anda * by Harold Wolff cynical nature are needed to pry the truth out of annual corporate reports TS YEAR, about twenty million “see-how-wonderful-we-are” gems, otherwise known as Annual Reports, will wend their way to the owners of United States corpcrate business. Hlow many avoid the quick road from mail- box to wastebasket, no one will ever know, But these documents, the products of some of Ainerica’s brightest business brains, deserve something more than the So great a degree of carc, ingenuity ‘and pure art is lavished in the prepa- ration of most annual reports that by now their appearance has become as fiercely competitive as Hollywood. Each year the Financial World offers awards for the best reports in each industry, and the boys vie for them as producers do for Oscars. Some reports, to be sure, are pretty dull stuff. The American Agricultural Chemical Ccmpany takes only four prim pages of figures to tell its stock- holders its 43-million-dollar story. On the other hand, the Diamond Match Company once went to the length of 272 pages of lushly illustrated text to tcll its tale of the great north wocds and the lore of the lumberman. Gencral Mills this year produced a supplementary re- port in the form of a Technicolor short. Harold Wolff served in the Overseas Branch of the OWI during the war and is now an economist for a large national corporation. As a free-lance writer he has contributed to Life, Liberty, Coronet aud olber magazines. : indifference with which they are often Seeainaeinesnte ane ween. Pepsi-Cola’s president, Walter Mack, invited stockholders to a series of ” Pepsi- Cola family parties” at which the anual report was discussed .and sandwiches and Pepsi-Cola were served to all. The annual report is supposed to tcll the stockholders, with appropriate fig- ures, how well or ill the business they own has fared and what its prospects appear to be. But in setting out to do this it finds itself caught in a dilemma over how much or how fitle to tell. On one hand therd is the older close- fisted, business tradition, nurtured in the front office, of telling little or nothing. On the other there is the newer ap- proach of the public-relations chief, who has a story to sell and wants to make the whole world share his enthusiasm for the ins and outs of his business. “out Securities and Exchange Commi: | that must make a> form, 10K, After all, the public-relatior* tells the corporation, every fier + on the exchange has to file’ w?. relevant information available = public. Why not, then, let the pr take down his corporate hair az the fclks something pany ?- About the outlook for ne>* About the new plants? About preducts? Why not [ect the py. make a statement about how ns about th? stifling businerrt=Wey potas : whole thing up pretty? Repre: George Inness on the front cove” color, like General Foods, both Technicolor like General M:” sandwiches 4 it Pepsi-Cola. But the difficulty is that youy tell five, 10 or 140,000 stock’ just how you are managing the: ness without making the same i tion available ‘o the curious | labor Icaders, consumers and c. Bs tors, all of whom are constant! ¢ to learn everything they car. how you do things. Can Nation:.3 tell how much it is making from: tiles-from-milk Aralac operation whetting the apy rctites w, milk companies? Should Coca- ce cuss with its) stockholders th. hits and errors of the Atlan* ball team which the company: Should General Tire discuss (F’ for its six radio stations? Is silen’ golden, or is it wiser to talk? All the ultimate answers tha? ' ts Eew ° re cayenne ray mee EY ; coe ili Caneel CB ATE ANITA LE OER IST NENT SPIE SY TY NATTY ART UY I ret ce