The Footnotes Analyst | Analytical Insights for Investors
Financial reporting, equity analysis and equity valuation insights for investors| The Footnotes Analyst
Financial reporting, equity analysis and equity valuation insights for investors| The Footnotes Analyst
Pension accounting can produce some odd results, such as companies that report a pension surplus, but which still make ‘deficit reduction’ cash contributions. This illustrates an underlying problem in financial reporting where pension assets and liabilities may not reflect the true economic position of the sponsoring company. We think the increasing closure of defined benefit schemes to new accrual, and the growing trend to de-risk, including the use of pension buy-ins and buy-outs, makes...| The Footnotes Analyst
Explore economic and accounting volatility in insurance under ifrs 17, focusing on cash flow estimates and market changes affecting liabilities.| The Footnotes Analyst
Acquisitions of struggling banks are producing record profits due to negative goodwill ‘bargain purchase gains’. The Q1 2023 earnings of Citizens Bank was $9,504m compared with $264m in the same period last year, largely due to its Silicon Valley Bank deal. Negative goodwill arising from business combinations is reported as an immediate profit under both IFRS and US GAAP; but does it really represent an increase in shareholder value? We explain the meaning of negative goodwill, its releva...| The Footnotes Analyst
Companies that use property assets in their business may adopt very different real-estate strategies. Ownership versus leasing and the choice of different lease structures can significantly impact key performance and valuation metrics. We show that separating the operating and property components, using ‘Opco-Propoc’ analysis, improves comparability. Some investors argue that the new IFRS 16 lease accounting reduces comparability. We disagree. In our view IFRS 16 reveals important differe...| The Footnotes Analyst
US GAAP and IFRS present the effects pension leverage differently in financial statements, notably leverage arising from pension fund asset allocation. This complicates the comparison and interpretation of performance measures and valuation multiples. We use Delta Air Lines to illustrate the positive impact of the US GAAP ‘expected return’ approach on reported profit, including the effect of optimistic return assumptions. If Delta had applied the IFRS ‘net interest’ approach we estima...| The Footnotes Analyst
The mark-to-market of commodity supply contracts, such as power purchase agreements and related derivatives, can create significant volatility in profit and loss. But are these gains and losses meaningful, and should you remove them from performance measures as many companies do in their non-GAAP reporting? There are 4 methods of accounting for power purchase agreements and, confusingly, you could find all of them applied by one company. We explain how each method works, when fair value gains...| The Footnotes Analyst
Whether you view Bitcoin as a modern-day tulip bulb mania bubble, that will inevitably burst, or an unstoppable development in finance, one thing is certain, companies are increasingly purchasing this asset. But how do Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies affect reported financial position and performance metrics? There are no accounting rules dedicated to cryptocurrencies. Under current US GAAP and, usually under IFRS, intangible asset accounting is applied. We use the reporting by MicroStrate...| The Footnotes Analyst
Most investors make extensive use of operating profit to assess company performance and as a starting point for valuation. But operating profit, like many company-provided subtotals, is not defined by IFRS; it is largely up to companies to decide what subtotals to include and even what to call them. However, the IASB may soon bring an end to this operating profit ‘free for all’. The proposal will lead to significant changes to the presentation of financial statements, notably the income s...| The Footnotes Analyst
Alternative performance measures (APMs) can be helpful for investors, but not necessarily the figure itself. It is the disaggregation of performance that is the real benefit. Focusing solely on adjusted measures means you will miss important aspects of profitability. We suggest how to use APMs to better understand performance, but without missing key elements. In our view this approach would provide a better basis for investor forecasts, as we demonstrate by disaggregating the IFRS earnings o...| The Footnotes Analyst
A change in accounting, such as the introduction of IFRS 16, does not in itself change underlying economics. It follows that equity values derived from DCF models should also be unchanged. However, the IFRS 16 lease accounting changes seem to be creating some confusion. We explain how to correctly adjust your DCF calculations and provide an interactive pre and post lease capitalisation model to illustrate. IFRS 16 makes DCF analysis easier and less prone to error; leaving your model based on ...| The Footnotes Analyst
There is a particular gain or loss in the income statement of many companies that, in our view, is irrelevant to investors. Fortunately, it is gradually disappearing from most IFRS financial statements due to the introduction of IFRS 9. However, if you invest in insurance companies you might not be so lucky. Chinese insurer Ping An's pre-2018 results were significantly impacted. But no longer - the company is one of the few IFRS reporters in the global insurance sector where investors now ben...| The Footnotes Analyst
Some 20 years ago the dot-com bubble was in full swing. A feature of many technology companies at the time, and arguably a factor contributing to the bubble, was not expensing the significant amounts of stock options granted to employees. Today stock-based compensation is included in IFRS and GAAP profit measures. However, many companies still exclude this item from key performance metrics provided to investors. Surely it is time for this practice to stop? We use the alternative performance m...| The Footnotes Analyst
In the alphabet soup of investment metrics, a new variant on EBITDA has appeared in some IFRS based company presentations – EBITDA-AL, with the ‘AL’ meaning ‘after leases’. But does the new measure make any sense? And why use EBITDA-AL rather than the established EBITDA or EBITDAR? All ‘earnings-before’ measures create comparability issues, omit key components of operating performance, and should be interpreted with caution. We think EBITDA-AL is worse than EBITDA, which never w...| The Footnotes Analyst
Limited disaggregation of income and expense items with different characteristics impair investors’ ability to assess and forecast performance. Recent proposals by the IASB for a new disaggregation principle and related disclosures of ‘unusual’ items will help. However, in our view, they do not go far enough. The IASB also proposes to include management alternative performance measures (non-GAAP or non-IFRS) within audited financial statements. We welcome this. Additional subtotals can ...| The Footnotes Analyst
Do you invest in both IFRS and US GAAP reporters? If so, then in recent financial statements you might have noticed differences in the accounting for leases. This could result in a significant lack of comparability in key metrics. Both IFRS and US GAAP now better reflect the economics of leasing and so the old adjustments to capitalise operating leases are no longer necessary. Unfortunately, you now need to make other adjustments to get comparability between US and IFRS reporters. We expla...| The Footnotes Analyst
A hidden conservative bias in the form of ‘prudent’ reserving has previously been a common feature of insurance accounting. This practice has made analysing the performance of insurance companies extremely difficult for investors. Hidden prudence is eliminated under the new IFRS 17 and the allowance for insurance risk in measuring liabilities should be fully transparent. However, considering some recent company presentations, we wonder whether this benefit for investors will be fully real...| The Footnotes Analyst
The profit of insurance companies that report under IFRS is affected by three rates of return – the liability pricing rate, the return from investments, and the IFRS 17 discount rate. The first two largely determine the magnitude of aggregate profit; the last mainly affects the timing of profit recognition and its classification as a service result or net financial result. We use an interactive model to explain how interest rates determine the reported results of insurance companies. The il...| The Footnotes Analyst
Non-GAAP measurers, but they are also controversial. Some argue that certain non-GAAP adjustments are unacceptable and should not be permitted. This recently happened to US company MicroStrategy, where the SEC required it to amend the presentation of cryptocurrency gains and losses. We do not agree with the SEC approach and believe MicroStrategy gives valid reasons for its cryptocurrency non-GAAP adjustment. We have less sympathy with other aspects of the company’s non-GAAP earnings calcula...| The Footnotes Analyst
Companies are continuously reshuffling their business portfolio by either spinning off assets (GlaxoSmithKline, Vivendi) or increasing their share in existing businesses (BMW, Siemens Energy). However, the M&A accounting applied to these transactions can produce some unusual and potentially confusing effects. In 2022, German luxury car manufacturer BMW increased its stake in its Chinese joint venture BMW Brilliance from 50% to 75%. Surprisingly, this produced a gain in profit and loss (even t...| The Footnotes Analyst
Stock-based compensation grants to employees in 2020 are likely to be affected by the changes to share prices and reduction in profitability currently being experienced by many companies. However, the impact on the related expense and on reported profit may not be what you might expect. For most companies, stock-based compensation is a ‘sticky’ expense that is only indirectly or partially affected current period changes. Limited disclosure in financial statements makes forecasting this ex...| The Footnotes Analyst
The capitalised lease liability of an inflation-linked lease does not include expected inflation. This results in a lower liability and lower initial expense compared with an equivalent lease with no inflation link. The IFRS 16 figures are updated as the inflation uplift occurs, but these catch-up adjustments create a profit ‘headwind’. We estimate that Tesco’s inflation linked leases result in a pre-tax profit headwind of about 2.2 percentage points of growth. If inflation were include...| The Footnotes Analyst
We often see investors using cash flow metrics, particularly cash from operations, as a measure of performance. Cash flow may even be preferred to profit because it is supposedly more reliable and less subject to management judgement and potential manipulation … “cash is a fact, but profit is an opinion”. We explain why cash flow may not provide the insights into performance that some investors expect, and how cash flow can often be managed even more freely than profit. Cash flow is nev...| The Footnotes Analyst
Many companies look beyond straight debt and ordinary shares when raising finance, with capital structures increasingly including an array of complex financial instruments. This presents challenges for investors, particularly when analysing performance and leverage. We investigate the effects of one form of ‘hybrid’ financing - perpetual super-subordinated bonds – where securities with debt-like features may be reported as equity in financial statements. Recent proposals by the IASB to ...| The Footnotes Analyst
The IASB will shortly issue its new international standard for the presentation of financial statements - IFRS 18. Changes that will benefit investors include a prescribed operating-investing-financing structure for the income statement, new defined subtotals, additional disaggregation, and a more relevant cash flow presentation. IFRS 18 will better align financial reporting with equity analysis and provide additional and more comparable data to facilitate that analysis, including data that s...| The Footnotes Analyst
Following the 2008 financial crisis, loan loss provisioning was changed to reflect ‘expected’ losses rather than ‘incurred’ losses. This made the impairment reserves of banks more responsive to changes in credit quality, but it also introduced a distorting day 2 effect. Under US GAAP most expected loan losses are charged to profit up front. This ‘prudent’ approach may be liked by banking regulators, but it can produce performance metrics that are confusing for investors. The disto...| The Footnotes Analyst
Investors require financial data that is comparable over time, comparable within a single set of financial statements, and comparable between companies. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. We explain how differences between IFRS and US GAAP, accounting policy options, differing interpretations and accounting estimates, can all reduce comparability. Convergence and comparability should be a priority for the IASB and FASB. Present consultations by the IASB and FASB regarding the account...| The Footnotes Analyst
