Call it the slowdown syndrome, or what some fund managers are calling the ‘common sense’ logic of concealing bad news when Dalal Street is on the upswing. Their reasons may differ, but large sections of India Inc are shying away from disclosing their unaudited financial results for what was a painful fourth quarter for the Indian economy.

The list includes the blue chip of India Inc from both public and private sectors. Mahindra & Mahindra, State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Larsen & Toubro, NIIT, Tata Power, Indian Oil Corporation and HPCL are some of the companies that won’t be announcing their Q4 results anytime soon.

This is not illegal. As per clause 41 of the listing agreement companies sign with the stock exchanges when issuing shares, Indian companies have two options. They can publish their unaudited annual results, which subsume the fourth quarter earnings, within a month of March 31. Alternatively, they can publish their fully audited annual results by June 30.

Stock market veterans say the number of companies going in for audited statements for 2008-09 is unprecedented. The trend that began as a trickle at the beginning of the Q4 results season has turned into a deluge this week with hundreds of companies opting to skip unaudited result declarations.

Consider this. On April 10, 16 firms informed stock exchanges that they would publish audited results by June 30, 2009. On April 13, the number had shot up to 169 at the National and Bombay stock exchanges. The next trading day, April 15, saw the number of disclosures by companies opting for audited results jumping to 206. On Thursday, at the time of going to press, such disclosures added up to133.

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