New Ways to Analyze Competitor Data on Key Metrics

Earlier this month, the SEC outlined a series of topics that they expect to examine in the annual reporting period set to begin in 2015, with some of the priority areas including foreign taxes, business segments, goodwill and internal controls. Because these areas will be under additional scrutiny by the SEC, this information is of even greater interest to corporate finance, analysts, and regulators alike. 

So what will the SEC be looking at exactly? According to a piece by Noelle Knox in the Wall Street Journal’s CFO Journal based on a recent overview by an SEC official, the SEC wants to “see more descriptions and disclosures of foreign jurisdictions where companies do business, as well as pre-tax material earnings, statutory and effective tax rates, as well as management’s expectations for the region.”  In addition, the article mentions that regulators will be paying close attention to business segments and to goodwill. 

While some companies may already have a good grasp on this data, the majority do not.  It would be wise for firms to be getting ahead of the SEC’s plans and get a clear picture of how they appear in each of these areas, particularly in relation to their peer group.

Unfortunately, this information can be quite challenging to obtain, as it generally requires hours of sifting through each company’s footnotes and disclosures. Calcbench has developed an affordable and easy-to-use financial analysis platform uniquely designed to get at this type of ‘hard-to-find’ data within seconds.  Our Footnote and Breakout Query tools give users access to information on any firm that files with the SEC, providing access to normalized data buried deep within company footnotes.

With just a few clicks within Calcbench’s platform, users can dive into Income Tax Notes, Goodwill balances and geographic or product segments for a custom group of companies. Registered users can access the Footnote Query or Breakout Query tools to get immediate access to this information.

Non-users are invited to sign up for a 2 week free trial of the complete Calcbench Premium Suite.  We encourage you to use our platform to extract this data on your firm and that of your competitors—and see for yourself how easy it can be to get access to this critical data.

Example of Revenue Breakdown by Geographic Segment – for Qualcomm FY 2013 

Access the Breakout Query tool to run your own analysis similar to this >> (login required)

Example of Goodwill by Operating Segment – for Merck FY 2013

Access the Breakout Query tool to run your own analysis similar to this >> (login required)

Example of a normalized data point on Foreign Taxes within the footnote under the Income Tax Note– for Phillips FY 2013

Access the Footnote Query tool to run your own analysis similar to this >> (login required)

To start a 2-week free trial to experience Calcbench’s affordable, easy-to-use platform, sign up now or contact us to learn more at us@calcbench.com or www.calcbench.com.