Overview

The overview provides a guide to the principles behind the Facts Report. At Hemscott we've been collecting data for over eighteen years and over this time, with a considerable amount of feedback from our clients, we've formulated our own way of calculating many of our figures and ratios. This section will provide some guidelines and methods behind our calculations.

Viewing the Facts Report

You will need Adobe Reader to read the reports. Get Adobe Reader here or ask your system administrator to install Acrobat Reader, available from http://www.adobe.com.

Updates

Each Facts Report is updated with any new information we receive on a nightly basis following close of trading.

Companies with a Facts Report

The Facts Report is available for companies with a listing on the London Stock Exchange, but not Irish companies or investment trusts.

Banks and Insurance Companies

Both banks and insurance companies provide their accounts in a different format to a standard industrial company. As a result a number of the figures and ratios on the Facts Report will not be relevant. In each case we have not left the field blank but inserted 'na' (not applicable). For example the entire contents of the borrowings box is not relevant to either banks or insurance companies so you will only see 'na'. Neither of these types of company have a turnover so anywhere where you find this on the report 'na' will be visible.

Missing Figures

As you look around the Facts Report you may notice figures missing. The main reason for this is that much of the data in each report is derived from a company's annual report. When a company releases its preliminary/final, certain parts of the report get updated to reflect this event and in other areas we remove old data.

The areas of the report that are especially affected by this are:

• Ratios:
  Whilst we are waiting for the next annual report this box will show four figures, PER, DY, PEG and EPS Growth providing the company has two years of broker forecasts. If the company has no forecasts the Co. column in the ratios box will be empty.
• Accounts:
  A (P) next to the financial year end denotes that the figures below are from the preliminary announcement. Not all of the 25 figures and ratios in the accounts box are collected from the announcement so we show only those figures that are. Items such as Norm. Pre-tax, EBITDA and CAPEX PS will be updated when we receive the new annual report.

Forecasts in the Accounts Box

Hemscott currently have over sixty brokers providing research to us. Each broker provides us with differing data but we collect a standard range of items that make it easier to compare figures on a like for like basis. The Facts Report provides two years of forecast data, in the accounts box, for those companies that we receive research for. An (F) next to the financial year end denotes that this is forecast data. In total you will find a maximum of fourteen fields.