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US fiscal year presentation standards (year start / year-end)
October 16, 2017
International Disclosure Services Corporation
Note: This report has been created based on objective research, and does not constitute a recommendation of any particular methodof disclosure or presentation. This report has been created and compiled based on careful research, but its accuracy is notguaranteed. Copyright pertaining to this report belongs to International Disclosure Services Corporation, and it may not be
redistributed or reproduced without the permission of International Disclosure Services Corporation.

When preparing disclosure documents in Japanese, Japanese companies generally take the beginning of the accounting
period as the standard for describing the fiscal year. The fiscal year from April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017 is generally
presented as “fiscal 2016” in Japanese. When preparing disclosure documents in English, however, some Japanesecompanies present the fiscal year from April 1, 2016 to March 31, 2017 as “fiscal 2016” using the beginning of theperiod like the Japanese, and some present this period as “fiscal 2017” using the end of the period as the standard.
In this report, we consider whether US companies generally use the start or end of the year as the standard for describing
fiscal years, based on research into the disclosure documents of major US companies. We have researched thisinformation for the 120 constituents of the S&P 500 index whose fiscal year does not end in December. We base ourresearch on the latest annual report where available, and when an annual report is not available, the latest Form 10-K,
which is the US equivalent to the annual securities report in Japan.
Fiscal year presentation standards for S&P 500 constituents
For the 120 constituents of the S&P 500 index whose fiscal year does not end in December, we researched whether
their fiscal year is described based on the start or end of the period, and found that all 120 companies describe theirfiscal year based on the end of the period (table 1).
As US companies generally use the end of the period to describe the fiscal year, it may be expected that it would be
more convenient for foreign investors if Japanese companies changed from using the start of the period to the end of
the period when preparing English-language disclosure documents. It is also reasonable, however, to use the start ofthe period based on the fact that these disclosure documents are, after all, translations of the Japanese disclosure
documents. Another option would be to avoid presenting the fiscal year in this way, and instead present it using a format
like “year ended March 31, 2017” (which is also possible in Japanese), thus ensuring consistency between English andJapanese presentation.

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US fiscal year presentation standards (year start / year-end)

Table 1 Fiscal year presentation standards for S&P 500 constituents (excluding those with a Decemberyear-end)
Fiscal year presentation standard
No.
Company
Fiscal year-endStartEnd
123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233
3435
3637
38
3940
414243444546
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
5657

Best Buy Co. Inc.
Dollar Tree
Foot Locker Inc
Gap Inc.
Kohl's Corp.
Kroger Co.
L Brands Inc.
Macy's Inc.
Nordstrom
Ross Stores
Signet Jewelers
Target Corp.
TJX Companies Inc.
Ulta Beauty, Inc.
Home Depot
Nvidia Corporation
PVH Corp.
Autodesk Inc
Salesforce.com
Tiffany & Co.
Wal-Mart Stores
Dollar General
Lowe's Cos.
Carmax Inc
Constellation Brands
Red Hat Inc.
CA, Inc.
CSRA Inc.
DXC Technology
Electronic Arts
McKesson Corp.
Microchip Technology
Symantec Corp.
Michael Kors Holdings
Polo Ralph Lauren Corp.
Qorvo
Xilinx Inc
Medtronic plc
NetAppPatterson Companies
Block H&R
Brown-Forman Corp.
JM Smucker
Conagra Brands
Darden Restaurants
General Mills
Cintas Corporation
FedEx Corporation
Global Payments Inc
Nike
Oracle Corp.
Paychex Inc.
Lam Research
Automatic Data Processing
Cardinal Health Inc.
The Clorox Company
Coty, Inc

January
January
January
January
January
January
January
JanuaryJanuary
January
January
January
January
January
January
January
January
January
January
January
January
January
January
February
February
February
MarchMarch
March
March
March
March
March
March
March
March
March
April
April
April
April
April
April
MayMay
May
May
May
May
May
May
May
June
June
June
June
June

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No.
585960
6162
6364
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
7273
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
8182
83
8485
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116

Company
Estee Lauder Cos.
Harris Corporation
KLA-Tencor Corp.
Microsoft Corp.
News Corp
Parker-Hannifin
Procter & Gamble
ResMedSeagate Technology
Twenty-First Century Fox
Western Digital
Coach Inc.
Sysco Corp.
Cisco SystemsCampbell Soup
Intuit Inc.
AutoZone Inc
Costco Wholesale Corp.
Accenture plc
Acuity Brands IncMonsanto Co.
Raymond James Financial Inc.
Walgreens Boots Alliance
Micron Technology
Apple Inc.
Hologic
QUALCOMM Inc.
Air Products & Chemicals Inc
AmerisourceBergen Corp
Becton Dickinson
D. R. Horton
Emerson Electric Company
F5 Networks
Franklin Resources
Jacobs Engineering Group
Johnson Controls International
Rockwell Automation Inc.
Rockwell Collins
Skyworks Solutions
TE Connectivity Ltd.
TransDigm Group
Varian Medical Systems
Viacom Inc.
Visa Inc.
WestRock Company
Tyson Foods
The Walt Disney Company
Starbucks Corp.
Analog Devices, Inc.
Applied Materials Inc
Broadcom
Hormel Foods Corp.
Agilent Technologies Inc
The Cooper Companies
Deere & Co.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
HP Inc.
Synopsys Inc.
Adobe Systems Inc

Fiscal year-end
June
June
June
June
June
June
June
June
June
June
June
June
June
July
July
July
AugustAugustAugustAugustAugustAugustAugustAugustSeptember
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
September
October
October
October
October
October
October
October
October
October
OctoberNovemberwww.ids-corp.co.jp© 2017 | IDS | International Disclosure Services CorporationFiscal year presentation standard
Start
End〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇〇

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No.
117
118
119
120

Company
Carnival Corp.
IHS Markit Ltd.
Lennar Corp.
McCormick & Co.

Fiscal year-end
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US fiscal year presentation standards (year start / year-end)

International Disclosure Services Corporation
International Disclosure Services Corporation specializes in supporting the disclosure of information for investors
overseas, providing disclosure document translation services, research, and consulting services related to Englishlanguage disclosure. Inquiries related to this report and our services may be submitted through our website.
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