President Trump tweeted today that he wants securities regulators to study the idea of having public companies report earnings twice per year instead of quarterly as a way to promote job growth. Later, he noted that the idea came from outgoing Pepsi chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi.
The bottom line: Nooyi did make the suggestion, according to a statement provided to Axios, but there was a bit more to it than what Trump tweeted.
Nooyi tells Axios, via an emailed statement:
Between the lines: It's true that, since 2013, Europe only requires publicly-traded companies to report full financials on a semi-annual basis. But some European exchanges still require quarterly reports, at least for large companies, while many European companies continue to report at least top-line numbers on a quarterly basis (often to satisfy shareholders).
Moreover, the Business Roundtable has not actually called for an end to quarterly reporting, but did recently propose that companies do away with providing quarterly guidance.
Finally, there is an argument that investors in European companies rely on the quarterly reports of U.S. companies in similar spaces, in order to track market demand, although Nooyi appears to believe that "harmonization" is more beneficial.
