Measuring profit and performance, a cautionary tale: Birmingham Small Arms c.1911–c.1936

Abstract

ABSTRACT Prior to the enactment of the Companies Act 1948, the ability of British company directors to largely determine the nature and form of the corporate financial statements published by their company, renders the information provided in those statements highly problematic. Of particular concern were the ability to hide transactions affecting reserve account balances and the lack of any legal requirement for companies which owned subsidiaries to present consolidated accounts. In the light of the problems and pitfalls identified previously in the literature, this study analyses the usefulness of reported profit figures as a means of measuring company performance, through an examination of the published financial statements of the conglomerate manufacturing firm, Birmingham Small Arms Co. Ltd., between 1911 and 1936. Although the analysis, which utilises internal accounting records, suffers from the usual problems associated with a single case study, it does complement earlier findings, thereby extending our understanding of the extent to which directors of British conglomerate companies manipulated corporate financial statements in the interwar years.