I would like a spreadsheet that normalizes and compares over a 3 year
period on an annual basis the following companies P&L statements.

ABB Ltd. (NYSE)
  -- U.S. GAAP

ALSTOM (NYSE)
http://www.alstom.com/static/content/alstomreport01_02-0.pdf

General Electric (NYSE)
  -- U.S. GAAP
http://www.ge.com/files/usa/en/ar2002/ge_ar2002_statements.pdf

Honeywell (NYSE)
  -- U.S. GAAP
http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/NYS/HON/reports/hon_2002ar_new.pdf

Invensys PLC (OTC)
  -- U.K. Auditing Practice Board
http://www.invensys.com/investors/ar2002/sfs.pdf

Johnson Controls (NYSE)
  -- U.S. GAAP
http://www.jci.com/AnnualReports/2002/2002ar_2.pdf

Siemens AG (NYSE)
  -- U.S. GAAP
http://www.siemens.com/index.jsp?sdc_p=t4cs3uo1032763dpnflm&sdc_sid=30173668981&

Normalize as many accounts as possible but at least

Gross Profit	
	Operating Expenses
	Research Development
	Selling General and Administrative
	Non Recurring
	Others
	
	Total Operating Expenses
	
Operating Income or Loss	
	Income from Continuing Operations
	Total Other Income/Expenses Net
	Earnings Before Interest And Taxes
	Interest Expense
	Income Before Tax
	Income Tax Expense
	Net Income From Continuing Ops
	Non recuring events
Net Income

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Request for Question Clarification by omnivorous-ga on 19 Nov 2003 12:11 PST

Stephen_NZ --

What do you want normalized?
  -- continuing operations only? (this can be a problem across more than 2 years)
  -- spending in constant currency? (currency rates vary so highly
that assumptions need be made for each year)
  -- some other factor?

Obviously I have a start on the spreadsheet, though for this answer
this one will have 17 lines for each of the 7 companies (across 3
years).

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

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Request for Question Clarification by omnivorous-ga on 19 Nov 2003 12:41 PST

BTW -- this is a lot of work -- probably about 4 hours.  You may want
to consider adjusting the price.

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Clarification of Question by stephen_nz-ga on 21 Nov 2003 14:00 PST

Normalization.  I want to be able to look across the account/
categorization of spend and have comparability so I can talk to the
issue of "although company X has a higher R&D spend, they are
different because ..." i.e. illustrate that they are substantially the
same.  I realize that with differing resolution of account information
this may be difficult.

This does not require normalization of currency.  If there was a
significant change in the underlying business it will be sufficient to
point that out as a discontinuity.

I am expecting about 2 hours or work.  45 minutes to gather the data
and one hour to synthesize an answer, 15 minutes of summary and
presentation.

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Request for Question Clarification by omnivorous-ga on 21 Nov 2003 15:42 PST

>Normalization.  I want to be able to look across the account/
>categorization of spend and have comparability <

You need to be specific on what you want from normalization.  For
example, should GE's financial operations (including GEICO insurance)
be dropped from consideration?

There's not a chance that this can be done in less than 4 hours,
barring access to proprietary databases with Fortune 1000 firms'
operating statistics.  There are 357 data points required, which will
require examining at least 2 annual reports or Form 10-K's.  Inasmuch
as each of the reports is 40+ pages, this is easily 30+ minutes for
each of the companies just to gather the data.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

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Clarification of Question by stephen_nz-ga on 24 Nov 2003 10:24 PST

I need to restate the question.

I would like to have a comparison of functional spend across the
following companies.  (I have eliminated Invensys on the basis of its
divestiture program)

Companies
ABB Ltd. (NYSE)
ALSTOM (NYSE)
General Electric (NYSE) excluding their finance business
Honeywell (NYSE)
Johnson Controls (NYSE)
Siemens AG (NYSE)

Functional spend breakdown
Sales
Marketing
Finance and Accounting
Administration
R&D

This should be normalized 
- Business type:  I am interested in the Engineering pieces of each
business so exclude finance businesses.
- Sales: intra company by company sales revenue
- Function: the functional breakdown should be consistent across
companies and where this is not possible the difference defined.

Data points 
- 6 companies 
- 5 functions + sales
- 2 years
= 72 data points. 

Regards - Stephen

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Request for Question Clarification by omnivorous-ga on 24 Nov 2003 11:04 PST

Stephen --

Let me suggest the following, as none of the companies breaks down
line-of-business details, even into SG&A + R&D details.  (Even
analysts reports rarely get that detailed, so you'd need proprietary
data.)

Have the researcher split out financial vs. product revenues.  For GE
as an example, the product side would include aerospace (jet engines);
appliances; electrical components -- but we'd exclude broadcasting and
GEICO.  What's included/excluded would be a key part of the answer.

BTW, by increasing the amount on the question you've made it more than
lucrative!  I still think that it's about a 4-hour task.

Let us know if this is acceptable and a researcher can complete the task.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

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Clarification of Question by stephen_nz-ga on 24 Nov 2003 12:20 PST

Can you suggest a way of getting to the functional break down of
spend.  Breaking the spend down by business line does not help me.

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Request for Question Clarification by omnivorous-ga on 24 Nov 2003 13:47 PST

Stephen --

I have a great deal of experience in dealing with financial reports
and you just can't that detailed a financial breakout unless the
company chooses to provide the information.  Thus, even business
school professors working on case histories rely on company
cooperation to get details such as those you're seeking.  You've seen
from the already-answered question that some companies don't even
offer an R&D breakout, something which surprised me a bit because I
thought that SEC reporting rules required it.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA

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Clarification of Question by stephen_nz-ga on 24 Nov 2003 15:30 PST

http://www.bizstats.com/  offers a break out of small business
expenditures.  Perhaps there is some equivalent for large businesses.

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Request for Question Clarification by omnivorous-ga on 24 Nov 2003 16:57 PST

Bizstats uses government statistical averages for businesses of all
sizes from the Economic Census of the U.S. and other sources (retail
numbers come from publicly available statistics; some numbers come
from industry associations).  For the large corporations, securities
analysts are always trying to build comparable numbers -- particularly
in sales and gross margins -- for different companies.  But analysts
reports are not generally available on the Internet.

GE is one of the more open companies.  You might want to look at it's
latest Q3 earnings presentation; also listen to the discussion with
analysts.  It'll give you an idea how hard it is to get normalized or
comparable numbers between these firms.

The Q3 earnings presentation is here:
http://www.ge.com/files/usa/company/investor/downloads/ge_analyst_meeting_111903.pdf

You can listen to the webcast at the following link.  To save time,
you may wish to skip the management discussion and fast-forward the
web audio to hear the types of questions that analysts are asking --
and what the company answers:
http://www.ge.com/en/company/investor/webcast/webcast_11192003.htm

Interestingly enough, GE is planning to spin out its financial units
during the coming year -- which should make its product divisions more
visible.

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA