Walt Disney Company said it had underreported its earnings for two fiscal years because of a mathematical error.
The company said, in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, that its pro forma fiscal 2001 earnings were $613 million, or 29 cents per share, compared to the previously announced $358 million, or 17 cents a share.
Disney said its 2000 earnings had reached $2.2 billion, or $1.03 per share, compared with a previously reported $1.6 billion, or 76 cents per share.
'The earnings should have excluded all goodwill and intangible asset amortisation but, inadvertently, the respective amounts for fiscal 2001 and 2000 did not eliminate all of the goodwill and intangible asset charges associated with the Internet Group,' the company said.
Disney's announcement defied the current trend of publicly-traded companies to inflate their earnings. Telecommunications giant WorldCom, best known for its MCI long-distance subsidiary, announced on Tuesday that it had inflated its earnings statement by $3.85 billion.
Photocopier maker and imaging company Xerox also admitted on Friday that its pre-tax earnings were less than the $1.4 billion figure published earlier for the period 1997-2001.
