An eclipse of nature and business

I have been plunged into darkness (well, almost) by an eclipse double today.

We all survived eclipse number one. Birds are still singing, people are still going about their everyday business and, most importantly, the local bin men have still taken away our rubbish this morning.

Almost a total eclipse from the Faroes...

We haven’t crashed and burned, nor has the world ended, as our ancestors thought. He’s not very scientific, my dad.

Heavy cloud cover in not-so-sunny East Anglia prevented a first-hand glimpse of this amazing phenomenon but at least I could watch an almost total eclipse in the Faroe Islands – courtesy of the BBC - without the travel costs. It was not the most riveting 30 minutes of TV I’ve seen but some of the technical explanations made it watchable.

Now I can get back to reading my former employer’s 2014 annual report, which has just arrived in the post.

Archant (a publishing company, although you wouldn’t know it from the name) hasn’t had a great recent history, with plunging revenues, a possible HMRC fine over a long-running dispute, changes in top management and, crucial for us pensioners, no dividend for the last few years.

There may have been lots of doom and gloom about for a number of years but at least the annual report was cheerful, entertaining and worth reading.

........and SFA from Suffolk.

The new-look offering is totally underwhelming – it contains no life, no joy and no human faces. Just bare facts and figures.

The new chairman says it is now presented in a format “more in line with a private limited company”.

By that I guess he means when you have (continual) bad financial news to divulge, shareholders don’t want to read about the company’s success stories – those award-winning journalists, that excellence in printing, the top-rate websites etc. etc. with loads of photos of normal people doing normal jobs.

But I have a feeling the change in format might be down to something else.

In past annual reports, the salary and benefits of every member of the board, including the chairman and the Chief Executive, were recorded. That information has been edited out as well.

The new team in charge obviously don’t want shareholders to know who is earning what.

Looks like the company has an eclipse of its own.