Tony Reeves, CFO - OneSteel Limited, was elected to succeed Tom Honan as National President for a term commencing 1 January 2008.
The National Congress 2008 will be held on 25-26 November at the Westin Hotel, Sydney. Members are requested to diarise these dates.
G100 made submissions to the IASB on the following exposure drafts and copies are available on the website:
The IASB will issue revised standards IFRS 3 ‘Business Combinations’ and IAS 27 ‘Consolidated and Separate Entity Financial Statements’ early in January 2008 which will be effective from 1 July 2009. These standards, when adopted by the AASB, will contain significant changes to current practice relating to accounting for business combinations.
The IASB has issued an ED ‘Cost of an Investment in a Subsidiary, Jointly Controlled Entity or Associate’ for comment by 26 February 2008. The ED is of particular interest in Australia as it deals with the formation of a new parent in restructures undertaken by a share for share exchange with shareholders. Under the proposals the investment of the new parent would be recorded at cost using existing carrying amounts and dividends would be treated as income and not as reductions in the cost of the investment.
The G100 conducted a limited survey of audit committee chairmen, of ASX top companies, to gauge their level of satisfaction with reporting to audit committees by CFOs. On the basis of the results of the survey (see attached) National Executive decided not to undertake a project on reporting to audit committees.
The G100 has made a further submission to Treasury to support the review of requirements for parent entity financial statements. This submission is in response to Treasury’s request for information about the costs of compliance with these requirements. Members are encouraged to provide relevant cost information to the Secretariat to support further submissions.
The G100 has written to Nick Sherry, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law, outlining its support for initiatives to reduce the magnitude and costs of business regulation. In addition the G100’s position in respect of the review of parent entity financial statements, the introduction of a solvency based regime for dividends and the support for legislative proposals for thin capitalisation rules are also explained.
The G100 has formed a working party to update the G100 publication ‘Sustainability – A Guide to Triple Bottom Line Reporting’. It is expected that a revised/renamed guide will be finalised in March/April 2008.
The G100 has formed a working party to prepare a good practice guide on reporting to shareholders etc. outside the full AIFRS based financial statements and annual report as a means of tailoring the information flow to investors to better communicate the company’s performance in a readily understandable form. The guide is expected to be published in April/May 2008.
Following the revision of the Corporate Governance Council’s Principles and Recommendations, the G100 will refresh its Guide to reflect the changes to the CGC requirements on Principle 7.
In a major development the SEC has announced that it will accept financial statements of foreign private issuers without the GAAP reconciliation where they comply with IFRSs as issued by the IASB. This is a major step in the acceptability and credibility of IFRSs as a genuine set of international accounting standards.
This is a multi-agency program with the objective of streamlining the way business reports to government. The SBR/XBRL conference in Brisbane was advised of the agencies involved (ASIC, APRA, ATO, ABS, SRO) and the objective of enabling forms to be completed electronically from business/record keeping software. The program will make extensive use of XBRL. Members will be informed of developments as this program progresses.
The CGC has considered supplementary guidance to Principle 7 and agreed to further develop the examples to assist entities in complying with Principle 7.
The ASX has issued the following consultation papers:
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