I read a lot of financial earnings statements at my job. I learned early on that “pro forma” and “adjusted” numbers, intended to give a true reflection of a company’s performance, are usually crap, and that when a company takes a different “extraordinary charge” each quarter, then they’re not so extraordinary, and the company is just fudging its accounting.
So it’s in that vein that I present to you this morning’s earnings statement by Sanofi-Aventis, “In a Difficult Environment, Another Year of Growth in Adjusted EPS Excluding Selected Items”
In order to give a better representation of its underlying economic performance, the group has decided to present and explain an adjusted consolidated income statement for 2006 and the fourth quarter of 2006, and to compare them with an adjusted consolidated income statement for 2005 and the fourth quarter of 2005 respectively.
Which is a bit like saying, “Excluding sectarian violence, our nation-building mission in Iraq is doing well.”