NEWS RELEASE 05/15/03
FASB Improves Accounting for Financial Instruments with Characteristics of both Liabilities and Equity
Norwalk, CT, May 15, 2003—The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has issued Statement No. 150, Accounting for Certain Financial Instruments with Characteristics of both Liabilities and Equity. The Statement improves the accounting for certain financial instruments that, under previous guidance, issuers could account for as equity. The new Statement requires that those instruments be classified as liabilities in statements of financial position.
Statement 150 affects the issuer’s accounting for three types of freestanding financial instruments. One type is mandatorily redeemable shares, which the issuing company is obligated to buy back in exchange for cash or other assets. A second type, which includes put options and forward purchase contracts, involves instruments that do or may require the issuer to buy back some of its shares in exchange for cash or other assets. The third type of instruments that are liabilities under this Statement is obligations that can be settled with shares, the monetary value of which is fixed, tied solely or predominantly to a variable such as a market index, or varies inversely with the value of the issuers’ shares. Statement 150 does not apply to features embedded in a financial instrument that is not a derivative in its entirety.
Most of the provisions of Statement 150 are consistent with the existing definition of liabilities in FASB Concepts Statement No. 6, Elements of Financial Statements. The remaining provisions of this Statement are consistent with the Board’s proposal to revise that definition to encompass certain obligations that a reporting entity can or must settle by issuing its own equity shares, depending on the nature of the relationship established between holder and issuer. That revision is expected as part of a second phase of the Board’s project on liabilities and equity that is planned to begin later in 2003. In that phase, the Board plans to address the accounting for convertible bonds, puttable stock, and other instruments with embedded features characteristic of both liability and equity that are not in the scope of Statement 150.
In addition to its requirements for the classification and measurement of financial instruments in its scope, Statement 150 also requires disclosures about alternative ways of settling the instruments and the capital structure of entities, all of whose shares are mandatorily redeemable. Most of the guidance in Statement 150 is effective for all financial instruments entered into or modified after May 31, 2003, and otherwise is effective at the beginning of the first interim period beginning after June 15, 2003. For private companies, mandatorily redeemable financial instruments are subject to the provisions of this Statement for the fiscal period beginning after December 15, 2003.
Due to the early effective date of most provisions of Statement 150, the full text of the document is now available on the FASB’s website at www.fasb.org. Printed copies will be mailed to subscribers on or about May 23, 2003. Copies also will be available after that date from the FASB Order Department by calling (800) 748-0659.
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Since 1973, the FASB has been the designated organization in the private sector for establishing standards of financial accounting and reporting. Those standards govern the preparation of financial reports and are officially recognized as authoritative by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Such standards are essential to the efficient functioning of the economy because investors, creditors, auditors and others rely heavily on credible, transparent and comparable financial information.
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