What is the difference between group financial statements and company financial statements?

Answer 1

group is multiple you see.

EDIT: Often an organisation will release both a group statement and a company statement. Group refers to the company in question and all its subsidiary holdings. This is because users of financial statements might want to know how the companies "core" operations are going as opposed to looking at the group statement which could have profits boosted by a different operation etc.

Edit2:

There is only a difference between the two statements for firms that hold shares in subsidiaries.

A subsidiary is a company that the parent company has control over, usually (but not necessarily) when the parents holds more than 50% of the shares.

In the company statements a financial interest in a subsidiary is shown as a line item ('subsidiaries') on the balance sheet. Depending on the valuation method used, dividends received or a profit share can be included in the income statement. (depending whether the cost method or equity method is used)

In the group financial statement (also called consolidated financial statement) the item subsidiaries is no longer included. Instead, the underlying assets and liabilities of the subsidiaries are shown. Similarly for the income statement, the subsidiaries expenses and revenues are included.

The group statements are usually informative, while the company statements provide little information. For example, the balance sheet of a listed company which is a holding company will have subsidiaries as its main asset (hence a single item as its assets). The consolidated balance sheet will show the actual assets (PPE, inventories, cash, etc) of the various subsidiaries. (Same principle for income statement).