3Com Takes A Stand Against Pro Forma Earnings
from the good-for-them! dept
This is a bit of a surprise, but 3Com has announced that they will no longer provide any “pro forma” financial statements, which have become so popular with companies these days. The idea behind pro forma statements is certainly reasonable. It’s supposed to let companies present their financial situation if various “one time” events didn’t occur. In practice, however, pro forma statements have become the way a company tries to hide anything bad. Pro forma, these days, is really the equivalent of “made up out of thin air” or “this is what we wish our financial reports looked like”. There’s been a lot more pressure these days for companies to stop reporting pro forma results, so it’s good to see at least one company agree to do so.
