CLOSE CYCLE RANKING 2009

Credit crunch and recession drives acceleration in annual results reporting across Europe

• Paragon Consulting Group and its BPM International consulting partners researched over 1,050 of the worlds largest companies
• 60 of the European FT100 have accelerated their results announcement date by an average of 4 ˝ days
• Company Finance teams deserve credit for meeting the credit crunch challenge of accelerated communication with investors 
• Auditors also met the challenge, 53 European FT100 companies accelerating audit timetables, by an average 7 days
• European FT100 Top 3 performers for results announcement are Ericsson (Sweden), Nokia (Finland) and BBVA (Spain)
• European FT100 Top 3 performers for audit sign off are Novartis (Switzerland), Novo Nordisk (Denmark) and Astra Zeneca (UK)
• Dramatic acceleration seen in close and announcement cycles  at many European companies despite the uncertainties caused by the credit crunch
• Generali (Italy), Xstrata (UK), Ericsson (Sweden), Barclays (UK), StatoilHydro (Norway), Zurich Financial Services (Switzerland) and Axa (France) have led the way with significant reductions in announcement dates.

read the full press release here.