Always a company that operates behind a veil of mystique, Altium will take that secrecy to a new level with its latest board decision which pares its quarterly earnings reports to semiannual announcements.

In a statement today, the PCB design software company said the decision came about following an investor roadshow in Sydney and Melbourne in February, where management pitched the notion that the quarterly reports somehow — and I’m reading between the lines here — distorting and negatively affecting the market perception by obscuring the “steady annual growth delivered by Altium” over past years.

“The overwhelming view of the investor community was that Altium has reached a level of maturity that allows it to focus on driving its business and, consistent with market practice, provide full year and half year reporting,” the company said.

OK, then.

The great thing about quarterly reports is that they force a company to be upfront with investors on a regular basis. Dial that back, and investors are going to make decisions based on data that are often less clear. I’ll be surprised if there’s any mass selling, given that many of Altium’s major shareholders are insiders, with current CEO Aram Mirkazemi holding about 9% of the company directly and more than 11% through holding companies, with the board holding more than 20% of the shares overall. But I suspect they will have a more difficult time attracting institutional investors.

Altium has set as a goal $100 million in annual revenue by fiscal 2017. It’s at an annual run rate of about $75 million right now. As companies get bigger, they need to keep in mind that their responsibility to their investors grows as well. We’ve been supporters of Altium’s unconventionality in the past, including the move to Shanghai, which some predicted would be the death-knell of the company. If anything, Altium has been very willing to think out-of-the-box, to its benefit. Reducing its earning reports is an ill-advised decision, however.