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BMO Financial Group’s Investor Relations web site has been selected as the overall Gold winner in the TSX Awards for Excellence in Electronic Disclosure. In addition, BMO’s 2001 annual report has been selected the Silver winner in the category of Financial Institutions in the CICA Corporate Reporting Awards for 2002, the tenth consecutive year that the CICA has awarded either a gold or silver to BMO Financial Group for excellence in its annual reports.
The awards, presented at the CICA Corporate Reporting Awards Luncheon, held today in Toronto, recognize the best corporate reporting models in Canada and recognizes leaders in the areas of electronic and corporate governance disclosure.
Judging groups include the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, (CICA), Canadian Investor Relations Institute (CIRI) and the Toronto Society of Financial Analysts.
This year, BMO redesigned its Investor Relations site, offering many easily accessible features to its shareholders and investment community.
Electronic disclosure of financial and business information was judged on the basis of:
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Availability of key items such as annual and quarterly reports, news releases, proxy circular annual information form, IR contact information, access to live conference calls, annual meetings, and major executive briefings
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Financial and business content
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Technology and usability (webcasts of investor presentations and earnings conference calls, analytical tools, and use of innovative technology)
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Overall effectiveness and best practices
Annual reports are judged according to clarity, quality and completeness of financial and corporate information including:
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Highlights
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Chair/President’s Letter to Shareholders
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Business operations, products and services
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Quality and effectiveness of Management’s Discussion and Analysis (MD&A)
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Supplementary disclosures, general readability and effectiveness of report to communicate
Earlier this year, BMO Financial Group’s 2001 Annual Report received the top ranking in the Annual Report on Annual Reports 2002. BMO’s report was judged to be the top ranked report amongst 350 listed company reports from 32 countries. The judging was conducted by enterprise.com, a European-based Annual Report consulting and evaluation service that publishes what it describes as the most comprehensive study and only global ranking of annual reports.
In that study, BMO ranked first for the quality of its Financial Reporting, second for Investor Orientation and Communications and first overall among the 350 annual reports judged.
ABOUT BMO FINANCIAL GROUP
BMO Financial Group (NYSE, TSX: BMO) – founded in 1817 as Bank of Montreal, Canada’s first bank – is a diversified financial services provider. With average assets of $254 billion as at October 31, 2002 and more than 33,000 employees, BMO provides a broad range of retail banking, wealth management and investment banking products and solutions. BMO serves clients across Canada and in the United States through its Canadian retail arm BMO Bank of Montreal, Chicago-based Harris Bank, a major U.S. mid-west financial services organization which also has wealth management offices across the United States, and BMO Nesbitt Burns, one of North America's leading full-service investment firms.
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