You remember, of course, that last month, the president, on his
way out of town for the weekend, tossed out to reporters the idea
of eliminating quarterly reporting. (See
this PubCo post.) The president said that, in his discussions
with leaders of the business community regarding ways to improve
the business environment, Indra Nooyi, the outgoing CEO of Pepsico,
had suggested that one way to help business would be to trim the
periodic reporting requirements from quarterly to semiannually. The
argument is that the change would not only save time and money, but
would also help to deter "short-termism," as companies
would not need to focus on meeting analysts' expectations on a
quarterly basis at the expense of longer term thinking. "We
are not thinking far enough out," he added. (For more on
saving time and money through semiannual reporting, see
this PubCo post.) But how much impact would a shift to
semiannual reporting really have on short-termism?
