Nortel's 10-K is coming…Really!
Depending on how you look at, I was either half right or half wrong in a story I wrote yesterday in the National Post that Nortel Networks would not be able to make its self-imposed Jan. 10 deadline to file restated financial results.
The good news is - as promised - Nortel will file a 10-K with the SEC, which should give analysts and investors a mountain of numbers to crunch and decipher next week. The disappointing news is the company wil not file its 2004 Q1 and Q2 results for several weeks - contrary to what Nortel said in a Dec. 8 press release that both quarters would also be out - or in Nortel's PR jargon “commence” - on Jan. 10. Some would say it's only a small miss but Nortel should be called on the fact they are only meeting half of a promise to the investment community.
Nortel has done a good job filling many of its financial holes but it is unlikely we'll learn about the really juicy stuff: For example, why was ex-CEO Frank Dunn abruptly fired, and what actually went down behind the scenes? Was the company simply over-aggressive about its accounting practices or was there widespread systemic fraud going on? When you look at the lucrative bonus structure created to motivate senior management, it's hard not to believe the idea of cashing in was impossible to resist.
January 7th, 2005 at 11:12 am
Dec. 8 press release: “The Company expects that it and NNL will commence to file these financial statements and related periodic reports on January 10, 2005.” Commence, commence, commence… the only deadline that was missed was the one imposed by the media and analysts… I rarely like to cut Nortel some slack, but they put the word “commence” in there for a reason.
Tyler