IFRS News Issue 105

2020-03-30

IASB has published a comprehensive discussion paper 'Business Combinations — Disclosures, Goodwill and Impairment'

On 19 March 2020, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) has published a comprehensive discussion paper DP/2020/1 'Business Combinations — Disclosures, Goodwill and Impairment'，aiming at improving the information companies provide to investors, at a reasonable cost, about the businesses those companies buy and would help to hold management to account for its decisions to acquire those businesses. In this context, the IASB is investigating possible improvements to IFRS 3 'Business Combinations' and IAS 36 'Impairment of Assets'. The comment period on the discussion paper ends on 15 September 2020.

Improving disclosures about acquisitions.

The IASB believes that companies should be required to disclose the strategic rationale for an acquisition, the objectives for the acquisition, and the metrics for monitoring achievement of objectives. This should be disclosed at the acquisition date. After the acquisition date the performance against the objectives should be disclosed. Companies would disclose information management uses internally to monitor acquisitions.

Companies would be required to disclose information about acquisitions used by their chief operating decision maker, a term that is described in IFRS 8 Operating Segments. The Board also believes that it should develop additional proposals that would require companies to disclose the amount, or range, of synergies expected from the acquisition, to disclose the amount of defined benefit pension liabilities and debt of the acquiree.

Improving accounting for goodwill

Can the impairment test be made more effective?

The Board believes that significantly improving the effectiveness of the test at a reasonable cost is not feasible. It also points out that shielding cannot be eliminated because goodwill has to be tested for impairment with other assets. The discussion paper also notes that an impairments test cannot always signal how an acquisition is performing, but that does not mean that the test has failed. When performed well, the test can be expected to achieve its objective of ensuring that the carrying amount of the cash-generating unit as a whole is not higher than its combined recoverable amount. The disclosure ideas discussed above could help provide investors with the information about the performance of acquisition they need. Finally, the discussion paper notes that if estimates of cash flows are too optimistic, this is best addressed by auditors and regulators, not by changing IFRSs. Companies are required by IAS 36 to use reasonable and supportable estimates when performing an impairment test.

Should amortisation of goodwill be reintroduced?

Having concluded that the impairment test cannot be significantly improved at a reasonable cost, the Board considered whether to reintroduce amortisation of goodwill (an impairment test would still be required). The discussion paper notes that Board members have different views on this topic, but by (narrow) majority came to the preliminary view that the Board should retain the impairment only approach because there is no compelling evidence that amortisation would significantly improve financial reporting. The impairment test is believed to provide more useful information than an arbitrary amortisation charge and is more effective at holding management to account for acquisition decisions. The Board believes that it would not be appropriate to reintroduce amortisation solely because of concerns that the impairment test is not being applied rigorously or simply to reduce goodwill carrying amounts. In this context, the Board also came to the preliminary conclusion that it should develop a proposal to require companies to present on their balance sheets total equity before goodwill.

Simplifying the impairment test

The Board is of the preliminary view that it should provide relief from the mandatory annual quantitative impairment test. A quantitative impairment test would be required only if there is an indication of impairment. The Board believes that the reduction in robustness of the test would be marginal because it is unlikely that material impairment losses occur with no indicator. Similarly, the Board is of the opinion that the benefit of performing the test when there is no indicator is marginal. The Board also intends to improve the calculation of value in use. This would be achieved by removing the restriction in IAS 36 that prohibits companies from including uncommitted restructuring and asset enhancement cash flows and by allowing companies to use post-tax inputs and post-tax discount rates in calculating value in use.