Compiling information for an annual report is a major business operation for a public company. At General Electric Co. (GE), its finance department works for about two months with input from about 200 people before it complies its 10-K (SEC required annual report). GE’s 2013 10-K had 246-pages containing 109,894 words. However, this information treasure chest was downloaded only 800 times from GE’s website. Given that GE has about 5 million individual shareholders, less than 0.01% of its individual shareholders chose to download the 10-K!

In 2014, GE decided to simplify its 10-K which contained 103,484 words (the footnotes alone contained 42,000 words). GE’s 2014 10-K was downloaded 3,400 times.

Do you read the 10-K before you invest in a public company?

http://blogs.wsj.com/cfo/2015/06/02/the-109894-word-annual-report/

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