A New Chapter for Non-GAAP Financial Measures

A New Chapter for Non-GAAP Financial Measures

June 28, 2016, Covington Alert

The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance (the “Division”) recently issued updated interpretive guidance on the use of non-GAAP financial measures. This guidance reflects an increasingly assertive position taken by the SEC in recent months regarding public companies’ use of numerical measures of performance, financial position or cash flows that are not calculated in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”). This renewed focus follows years of use of non-GAAP financial measures by many issuers and recent analyst research and press reports that have raised questions about the discrepancies between such measures and financial performance metrics calculated in accordance with GAAP.