Campus

Lack of transparency in the forecast reports of DAX companies

Shareholder association Deutsche Schutzvereinigung für Wertpapierbesitz (DSW) calls the forecast reports in the annual reports of the DAX 30 from the year 2011 and the semi-annual reports for 2012 ”often unreliable and therefore simply useless for investors”, so that it could hardly judge them more severely.  Its study analyses qualitative and quantitative information on expected net profit and business development in the “Outlook” section (“Forecast”) in each annual report. One in three DAX companies thus withholds important information about future prospects from investors. Transparency has also been reduced since the last investigation. Six DAX companies received the grade of “high transparency” for their forecast reports (Fresenius Medical Care, Fresenius SE, adidas, Munich Re, RWE and Deutsche Post (previous year: 7). The majority of the DAX30 companies fall into the category of “middling transparency” (15 companies, last year 17). Nine of them​​ gave no information in the 2011 Annual Report on the level of expected earnings for this year and were rated “low transparency” (previous year: 6).