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| Friday, November 20, 2009 |
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ANALYSIS
March 2, 2009
Sagging Index no longer reflects what’s going on in the market, some say, Replacements? Google it, to start.
March 2, 2009
Downward price spiral will actually boost the cost of capital for most companies. CFOS, take note.
March 2, 2009
The latest bailout at AIG could be a preview of how the president will deal with Wall Street.
March 2, 2009
No corporate defaults. Big debt offerings. Percolating CP issuance. Things may be looking up in the capital markets.
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November 18, 2008 1:49 PM ET
Despite efforts by the G20 group of nations to accelerate changes to financial reporting, accounting standard-setters said they will continue their projects as planned in the next few months. “There’s a lot of things already under way,” Sir David Tweedie, chairman of the International Accounting Standards Board, said at the Current Financial Reporting Issues conference in New York on Monday. The group of 20 nations met in Washington over the weekend and asked the boards to take several actions—by March 31, no less—to help ease the financial crisis. Specifically, the G20 indicated that the key global accounting standards bodies (the IASB and the Financial Accounting Standards Board,) should work to enhance guidance for valuing securities, including the complex, illiquid products, especially in times of stress. The G20 also recommended that accounting standard-setters significantly advance their work to address weaknesses in accounting and disclosure standards for off-balance-sheet vehicles. Beyond that, leaders of the 20 nations suggested that regulators and accounting boards enhance the required disclosure of complex financial instruments by businesses to market participants. During Monday’s conference, Mr. Tweedie and his U.S. counterpart, Robert Herz, chairman of FASB, each addressed the G20’s requests. Neither seemed particularly eager to rush ongoing initiatives just to please the G20. In fact, Mr. Tweedie noted that the boards will deal with amending standards on consolidation of assets later next year. “These are very complicated projects,” he said. “If you rush them you make mistakes.” Patricia Donoghue, a FASB project manager working on amending the standards for off-balance-sheet vehicles, said at another panel at the conference that the board is already trying to work as fast as possible on the assignment. “We think it’s possible to make progress by then,” she said. “What we don’t know is what interference we’ll have from other parties,” that could delay issuance of the amendments. She didn’t indicate what parties she was referring to. Both Mr. Tweedie and Mr. Herz defended the recent work of the two boards on valuing assets in fractured markets. “Both boards have been dealing with illiquid markets,” said Mr. Tweedie. “There’s not much more to do there.” Indeed, the IASB and FASB did issue additional guidance in October on how to value securities in illiquid markets. The guidance included specific examples. “I’m not sure there’s more to be done on illiquid markets,” Mr. Herz echoed, adding that what corporate managers and the G20 countries really want is a cookbook on fair-value accounting. “We’re not going to give them a cookbook,” he said.
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