A friend of yours, Ryan Konotopsky, has come to you looking for some answers about financial statements. Ryan tells you that he is thinking about opening a movie theatre in his home town. Before doing so, he wants to find out how much he could expect to make in sales from food concessions as opposed to ticket sales. He wants to know what portion of ticket sales he could expect for children, youths, and seniors, who pay less than adults, who pay the highest admission rate. He also wants to know how much profit he would make on ticket sales versus sales at the concession stands, and he would like to know the average wage per employee.

Ryan downloaded the financial statements of Empire Company Limited, which owns Sobeys, Canada's #2 grocery chain, and a variety of commercial and residential real estate, in addition to Empire Theatres, Canada's #2 movie exhibitor. He read through Empire's annual report and learned that Empire Theatres is just one part of the company's Investments and Other Operations division. There are food retailing and real estate divisions as well.

Ryan is disillusioned because he cannot find many details about Empire Theatres in the financial statements. He has come to you looking for explanations.

Instructions

(a) Describe the fundamental and enhancing qualitative characteristics, including the cost constraint, of useful financial information.

(b) Identify which, if any, of the characteristics you identified in (a) might explain why Ryan cannot find much information about Empire Theatres in Empire's financial statements.