Features

Disney files amended financial reports to fix math error

The Associated Press
Monday July 01, 2002

LOS ANGELES – The Walt Disney Co. filed amended financial reports Friday to correct a math error relating to new accounting rules. 

The corrections for the first and second quarter do not change the company’s previously reported net income or balance sheet, according to the reports, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission after the close of markets. 

The recalculations affect a line in the quarterly statements that reported the previous year’s income as if a recent accounting change had been in effect. 

The accounting change requires companies to reflect the loss of goodwill, or the difference between what a company paid for an investment, such as an acquisition, and what that investment is actually worth today. 

Disney said its reporting failed to take into effect the goodwill effect on its Internet division. 

The amended reports are in the company’s favor. 

For instance, for the first quarter ended Dec. 31, 2001, Disney said its earnings for the prior year’s period, before the effect of the accounting change, were $440 million, or 21 cents per share. 

In the amended report, that figure is $565 million, or 27 cents per share.