Bạn muốn bắt một nhà phân tích cái nhìn thoáng qua, truyền hình một tiêu đề trong một số tờ báo hoặc tạp chí, hoặc nghe trong sợ hãi là một trong những hàng xóm của bạn tự hào về cách họ đã quản lý để tăng gấp đôi tiền của họ trong vòng hơn một năm. Tăng gấp đôi trong chưa đầy một năm! và | Financial Fine Print Kodak is hardly the only company benefiting from this rule. Many publicly traded companies rely on options to pump up earnings although the practice is particularly endemic at technology companies where options have long been a key part of employee compensation. Few individual investors realize that while accounting rules require all companies to disclose the impact that expensing options might have on the company s bottom line they re required to do so only in the footnotes. And up until as recently as December 31 2002 when the Financial Accounting Standards Board FASB changed its rules to require quarterly disclosure companies were required to disclose the potential impact on earnings only once a year. In this footnote the companies describe their income loss after subtracting options expenses as pro forma earnings. But unlike the pro forma numbers that many companies like to tout for more on this see Chapter 4 these pro forma figures are almost always worse which is why they are buried in the footnotes. Does anyone really give a damn about the options numbers in the footnotes asks Jim Leisenring the former vice chairman of FASB who was one of those leading the charge back in the early 1990s to change how companies account for options. Under that proposal companies would have been required to charge the cost of employee stock options against income. But numbers for the same year without restating its numbers which Kodak did not do In its 2002 filing Kodak uses net income from continuing operations. But in its 2001 filing Kodak uses net income. FASB rules clearly state that companies are supposed to use net income in their options disclosure but they don t explicitly prohibit a company from using net income from continuing operations. It s a subtle word change but one that means the difference between reporting a profit and a loss and shows how a company can follow generally accepted accounting principles and still push the envelope. 68 .
