346. (1) Where the annual return of a company is made up in any year to a date earlier than its annual return date, the company’s annual return date shall thereafter be each anniversary of the date to which that annual return is made up unless the company—

(a) elects in the annual return to retain its existing annual return date, or

(b) establishes a new annual return date in accordance with subsection (2),

but, for the avoidance of doubt, an election under paragraph (a) does not operate to make the next annual return date of the company fall in any year other than in the year in which it would have fallen had the election not been made.

(2) Save in the case of a company delivering its first annual return and subject to subsections (3) and (4), a company may establish a new annual return date by delivering an annual return to the Registrar made up to its existing annual return date in accordance with section 343(2), being an annual return—

(a) that is so delivered not later than F255[56 days] after its existing annual return date, and

(b) to which there is annexed a notification in the prescribed form nominating the new annual return date,

but, notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Act, the company shall not be required to annex statutory financial statements, or the other documents referred to in section 347(1), to such a return.

(3) The new annual return date established pursuant to subsection (2) shall be a date falling within the period of 6 months following the existing annual return date.

(4) Where a company has established a new annual return date pursuant to subsection (2), it shall not establish a further new annual return date pursuant to that subsection until at least 5 years have elapsed since the establishment of the first-mentioned new annual return date.

(5) Where it appears to the Registrar desirable for a holding company or a holding company’s subsidiary undertaking to extend its annual return date so that the subsidiary undertaking’s annual return date may correspond with that of the holding company, the Registrar may, on the application or with the consent of the directors of the company or undertaking whose annual return date is to be extended, direct that an extension is to be permitted in the case of that company or undertaking.

(6) Where the annual return date of a company or subsidiary undertaking in a year is altered pursuant to subsection (2) or (5), its annual return date thereafter shall be each anniversary of the date so altered, but subject to any subsequent invocation, in accordance with their terms, of the preceding provisions of this section.