Analysts who cover Positivo Informática's shares have won a little helping hand for their analyses of the company's balance sheets. Positivo's investor relations (IR) website has started providing spreadsheets with the company's equity balance, earnings statements, operating data and revenue breakdown since 1Q 2007, incorporating the changes introduced by Law 11,638/07 and by provisional measure 449/08 – both created to adapt balance sheets to the international financial reporting standards (IFRS).

The CVM required only that companies convert their numbers into the IFRS format, starting with the 2008 consolidated annual balance sheet. Positivo's initiative therefore brings two additional benefits: it also converts the 2007 numbers into the international standard format, thereby facilitating comparison; and it does the same for its quarterly results, both for 2007 and 2008.

"Despite the extra effort that these adaptations imposed on our IR department, we believed that it was the most correct thing to do, to favor comparability", affirms Ariel Szwarc, Positivo Informática's investor relations director. Using the spreadsheet, analysts can verify that from April to June 2009, for instance, Positivo's net revenues were R$ 516.3 million – 2.8% less than the same period last year. However, if the comparison were made using different formats – comparing the second quarter of 2009, with the changes introduced by Law 11,638/07, with 2008 data using the old accounting standards – the decline would have been 6.3%. (Luciana Tanoue)