It was one o'clock in morning, and Ann Schneider sat at her desk sipping her fourth cup of coffee. Ann's assignment was to examine three company annual reports from different countries with the task of evaluating the most successful one. Consider it was going to be easy, Ann waited until the night before it was due to start the assignment. But there she sat, staring blankly at the annual reports.
Ann's problem was a lack of reliability in the annual reports. The three companies' reporting practices and policies differed, and even some of the similar terms had different meanings. After spending an hour flipping during the annual reports and accomplishing little, Ann decided that her best bet was to restate the foreign financial statements to domestic GAAP and then do a financial analysis. She figured that starting the companies to a common accounting base would give for her comparison across companies.
1) Do you agree with Ann's technique of comparing foreign companies with one another?
2) Find what are some factors that must be considered when conducting cross-country comparisons among companies?
3) If you had Ann's assignment, what might you do to recognize the most attractive company?