The Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday proposed changing its rules to allow public companies to report their earnings only twice per year, which would end the agency’s decades-long requirement for publicly traded companies to file quarterly earnings reports, following through on a policy pushed by President Donald Trump last year.
The SEC proposed allowing companies to opt into reporting earnings semiannually instead.
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The proposed rule change would allow companies to opt instead to file earnings reports semiannually, which would also be filed 40 or 45 days after the end of each half.
In a statement on Tuesday, SEC chairman Paul S. Atkins said the change was part of his agency’s “Make IPOs Great Again agenda” and said the “rigidity” of the quarterly reporting requirement stopped companies from deciding for themselves whether quarterly or semiannual reporting was more appropriate for their businesses.
Trump has been pushing the idea of switching to semiannual reporting since his first term in office, and last year said the move would “allow managers to focus on properly running their companies.”
In the past, business leaders have had mixed views on the subject. In 2018, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Berkshire Hathaway chair Warren Buffett co-authored an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal supporting the switch to semiannual reporting, insisting the practice of quarterly reports leads to an “unhealthy focus on short-term profits at the expense of long-term strategy, growth and sustainability.” More recently, Citadel founder Ken Griffin told CNBC last September he thought quarterly reporting was a more “fair” idea for businesses. “Every business that I know of is doing monthly financials to start with. I don't understand the merits of holding back from the market readily knowable information,” Griffin said, adding that “if you go to a longer period between reporting, I think you risk losing some level of accountability."
In his statement on Tuesday, Atkins said the new rule would give companies the option to make a more efficient decision based on many factors, including “the costs and management time of preparing quarterly reports versus semiannual reports, expectations of its investors, potential effects on its cost of capital, the stage of its business development, the nature of its business model, other avenues of disclosure including earnings calls and current reports on Form 8-K, and prospects of increased research coverage.” The SEC chair also insisted these decisions could be made “all without undermining fundamental investor protections.” Speaking to Bloomberg TV on Tuesday, Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s former treasury secretary during his first term in office, said he supported the proposed rule change. “I can imagine there are a number of companies, particularly companies that are growing, that are still going to be interested in showing quarterly earnings and showing their progress through the year,” Mnuchin said.
The proposed rule change will not go into effect until the SEC’s rulemaking process is complete. The semiannual reporting change is now in the public comment phase, which can last between 30 to 60 days, according to the agency.
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