LEGO Annual Report 2015 - Things to Look For

Have you ever read some of the companies annual reports ? ... If so, you probably know what awaits you inside the document. And if not, you might be pleasantly surprised by the amount of information you will learn there. :-)
Every company differs in the amount of information that is being shared with the public, though. And, of course, it differs also in the way of presenting the content.

Contents of the LEGO Annual report 2015

I've read a lot of annual reports so far. And I can frankly tell you that I've felt asleep while reading some of them. On the other hand, there are companies on the market that dedicate a lot of effort and time to their annual reports and the result is then a real masterpiece, full of colours, graphs, fun, visualisations, ...
I think that LEGO Annual report stands somewhere in the middle. The content is very readable, design is neat but it lacks graphs and a little more playfulness.

LEGO Annual Report 2015 - page 27

There are a few exceptions such as the pictures below but the majority is a plain text and tables.


Design and readability is one thing. But the other one, which is crucial for every stakeholder, is the clear interpretation of the financial performance of the company. And there LEGO becomes strong.

LEGO Annual Report 2015 - Financial highlights

The Management review provides management comments on financial performance and is usually the most interesting section and a rich source of information.

LEGO Annual Report 2015 - Management review

Meet the Management Board on the photo above which is currently represented by 4 men and 1 woman. The most left on the picture is Bali Padda - Chief Operations Officer, next to him Julia Goldin - Chief Marketing Officer, Jorgen Vig Knudstorp alias Man who rescued LEGO - CEO, Loren I. Shuster - Chief Commercial Officer, and the most right is John Godwin - CFO who joined LEGO after 22 years in Procter & Gamble.
There is no doubt about the quality and coordination of the current team while looking at the 2015 very positive and healthy financial results which hasn't been always the case for LEGO in past.

LEGO Annual Report 2015 - Financial ratios

There aren't many companies that can boast with such numbers. One of my favourite things I learnt at school was the ROE breakdown model which measures how well the company generates cash flow relative to the capital it has invested to the business and this return is unusually high for LEGO and outperforms its peers in the toy industry.
And such results are mainly driven by exceptional growth in revenues. LEGO explains where did such a growth in sales come from in section LEGO sales. You will learn which geographical markets experienced the highest growth or which were the most selling LEGO lines in 2015.

LEGO Annual Report 2015 - LEGO sales

What I find also very interesting is the section focused on Capacity investments where LEGO describes its investments into new production plants such as the ones in China, Czech Republic or Hungary.

LEGO Annual Report 2015 - Capacity Investments

The mandatory part of the Annual Report are financial statements which reflect what was described by management earlier in the report. The number in the Income Statement which interests majority of readers is the Net profit for the year, which increased by more than 30% y-o-y in 2015.

LEGO Annual Report 2015 - Financial Statements

At the very end of the report there is a Group Structure which shows all the companies in the LEGO Group. There is quite a lot of them.

LEGO Annual Report 2015 - Group Structure

And if you are attentive reader, you will even get to know how LEGO evaluates its employees in terms of bonuses. :-)
Or you might notice the possible hiring opportunities when LEGO mentions its plans to consolidate certain service activities in a new global function located in Czech Republic, Mexico or Singapore in 2018.

Overall, very interesting and useful content. :-)

Have you ever opened the LEGO Annual Report ? Or is it something which doesn't interest you at all ?

I will be very happy if you comment below.