ICGN'15: integrated reporting update

The 20th ICGN conference is underway. While the annual meeting and official welcome signalled the start of the conference, ICGN committee meetings and lunchtime panel discussions were scheduled, to fit everything into the thee-day window. Claudia Kruse chaired a very interesting lunchtime panel discussion on integrated reporting. The IIRC's Corporate Reporting Dialogue (CRD) was launched twelve months ago, and it was the panel's purpose to discuss the progress made and to solicit feedback from the gathered members.

ICGN has bee an active proponent of 'tidying up' reporting. The aim of integrated reporting is to provide a representative view of how the company is actually performing. After a brief summary provided by the panel, the time was turned over to attendees, to ask questions and discussion:

• The panel acknowledged the perennial chestnut, of who wants IR was briefly mentioned. Panel members indicated a dichotomy exists whereby some think IR is an investor-led initiative, and others think it is (or should be) management-led. While the question was not opened fully, I found the possibility that any group other than the shareholders or the board might initiate anything. Yet boards hardly rated a mention during the entire conversation. This, despite the board being a proxy representative of shareholders!
  
• I found it interesting that 'value creation' was offered as a key driver for integrated reporting, and that "proper reporting leads to better corporate governance". Really?

While I am a strident fan of transparency and straightforward reporting, I couldn't help but think that the approach the IIRC and ICGN is following has missed the boat somewhat. Integrated reporting has been conceptualised as being management-led activity, and that "proper reporting leads to better corporate governance. Yet the elephant in the room (if I can mix metaphors) is that integrated reported has been conceptualised by the ICGN team as being a management activity. The board was mentioned rarely during the entire panel discussion, even though the board is supposed to be accountable for company performance. Another challenge for the ICGN working group is that the focus is almost entirely on publicly-listed companies. I asked the question and, for my troubles, may have 'volunteered' to working out if and how integrated reporting might apply in a privately-held company context. 

Notwithstanding these challenges, the fact the ICGN is asking the question and looking for ways to bridge between the different reporting requirements of different jurisdictions is good, really good. I look forward to future updates and, possibly, to contributing the the 'privately-held' part of the discussion.