Le magazine du trésorier - n°72 - 4ème trimestre 2010 - (Page 9)

10 years of IAS 39: what next? The ten years of IAS 39 have changed our lives as treasury managers. We have been involved with and using “hedge accounting” for so many years that we have almost forgotten the days of local GAAP that went before it. In this article, we want to make some comments on the future IFRS 9 but also put together some of the thoughts of practitioners, treasury managers and academics on this financial instrument accounting standard that has revolutionised the way we carry out treasury management. IAS 39 HAS CHANGED OUR LIVES Whatever IFRS 9 may come up with when its final and definitive version is released – expected in the second half of 2011 - no treasury manager can claim that IAS 39 has not changed his work and his methods of managing risk and using derivatives. As a natural optimist, I would even be tempted to talk of celebration rather than commemoration. IAS 39 has, in one way or another, changed all our lives as treasury managers, bankers or service providers (and not always for the good, some critics amongst us might say). Let’s think back to what we did before January 2001 and the type of derivative products that we dealt in then. Our derivative instrument portfolios have been considerably simplified and the most structured and most leveraged products have become fewer. We have become real mini-accountants and financial reporting specialists (see IAS 32 IFRS 7). Could IAS 39 have perhaps brought us closer to operational activities and made us speak to the accountants more than we used to? In any case, no one can claim that IAS 39 has not had a major effect on our profession and our suppliers! SON OF IAS 39 IAS 39 and its offspring IFRS 9, whose impending arrival we await, are not just accounting standards they represent a sort of way of life. We have got used to this standard. Olivier Cattoor Founder Finance Forward We may have disliked it or even loathed it. We may have fought against it through the treasury manager associations and all of us have no doubt begged for some aspects of it to be changed, with greater or lesser success.We even hoped that the IASB would reduce its complexity (www.iasb.org). It has been one of the major challenges for treasury managers over the last ten years, and particularly since 2005, when IFRS was made mandatory for listed IAS 39 has changed my life, at least considering the number of consulting projects we have delivered in this area between 2000 and 2005 across Europe... I believe that many treasurers would agree to some extent... IAS 39 has imposed additional painful constraints on the Treasurers' daily job in terms of hedging instruments and hedge documentation. On the positive side, IAS 39 has brought some well needed rigour in the area of derivative hedging. IAS 39 has forced some treasurers to think more in terms of effectiveness of their hedges, thereby having to decline sexier but riskier products proposed by their bankers. I am far less positive for the implications of IAS 39 on the financial sector in terms of transparency and comparability of financial statements. FOCUS 9 http://www.iasb.org

Table des matières de la publication Le magazine du trésorier - n°72 - 4ème trimestre 2010

Couverture
Sommaire
EDITORIAL
- “Catch 22”, a synonym for Kafkaesque situations
FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS
INTERVIEW
- Mr. Johannes Heinloth, Global Head of Loan Syndications, BayernLB
FOCUS
- 10 years of IAS 39: what next?
- La réforme de la TVA, une vraie bonne idée ?
- Respirer, ça paie !
- An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty: is IFRS 9 an opportunity or a difficulty?
FORUM OF ADVERTISERS
- “FX Currency Hedging:Applying Cash flow at Risk (CFaR)”
- Working Capital Optimization, A focus on payables & trade credit management.
- La Fed et la Chine mettent l’Asie dans l’embarras
- Cash Management was yesterday, Cost Efficiency is key.
CORPORATE FINANCE
- Cinq questions à Philippe Lison, Administrateur-Directeur de Hamburg-Mannheimer Benelux
- 15 minutes with OtimO
TREASURERS' ASSOCIATIONS
- Deuxième Conférence CFO World : l’engouement des directeurs financiers luxembourgeois se confirme
- 14th IGTA Meeting & Semi-Annual EACT Meeting Geneva – October 2010
NEWS

Le magazine du trésorier - n°72 - 4ème trimestre 2010