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Hello,
Sorry if this question has been answered already but I searched and could not find it. The company I am studying have released unaudited Full Year 2021 Results. The comparator has not released any results for 2021 yet. Therefore, am I right in assuming that I use 2018, 2019 and 2020 for both companies?
Also, if I do not use the 2021 financial results, does this mean I ignore any developments for either company last year? So any news articles for 2021 would be irrelevant in my analysis. McDonald’s have only introduced vegan burgers last year and a loyalty program in the USA. Does that mean I would not use this information in my SWOT analysis?
Thank you for your help, this forum has been an invaluable resource and I don’t know what I would do without it 🙂
LolaThose companies with December year end take a couple of months before releasing their results so these will be due sometime this month. Oxford Brookes rules are you should use the latest financial statements subject to the 90 day rule – that is where they have been made public within 90 days of 1 May you are not obliged to use them (however you may if you choose to do so), so effectively means any annual reports that were issued since 1 February 2022 are not compulsory. In your case the year end 2020 is probably the latest year.
However the financial statements are only part of what has gone on in a company and if the 2021 financials are not available any major developments, strategic decisions and the like should be commented on even if it means relying on unaudited accounts. You have to use some discretion and not be too rigid in approach when considering what to include and what to leave out in terms of the actual time cut-off for financial statements – it would be wrong to ignore something material that has impacted 2021 merely because the audited accounts were published after 1st February 2022
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