Other comprehensive income

Gains and losses that change the value of the owners' stake but are kept out of profit for the year, because they have not been realised and would make reported earnings swing on things management does not control.

The usual residents are remeasurements of defined-benefit pension obligations, fair-value movements on certain equity investments, the effective portion of cash-flow hedges, and translation differences on foreign operations.

A company reporting ₹615 crore of net profit and ₹40 crore of other comprehensive income has increased shareholders' funds by ₹655 crore before dividends.

Some of these items later move into profit and some never do, and the distinction is disclosed. For a manufacturer the line is usually small enough to ignore. For a bank or an insurer holding a large investment book it can be larger than the reported profit, and ignoring it means ignoring most of what happened to the shareholders' money.