The half-year results statement today from Next is something like 70 pages long – thousands and thousands of words.
You’d expect it to be full of jargon and gobbledegook and for me to moan.
Actually, it is brilliant.
Everything you could possibly want to know about where this business is at, what it has learnt and where it hopes to go now is there.
CEO Simon Wolfson might seem to find the press tiresome, but perhaps that is because they’d know the answer to their questions if they had read what he wrote.
We are not used to thinking of RNS’s as a treat, but there are gems littered across this one. There are snipes at video conferences – “death by deck” – says Wolfson and jokes about beer.
For hacks, all this is very helpful. For investors it must be hugely reassuring.
It can’t be an accident that the companies with the clearest corporate communications also have the best CEOs.
