The IASB issued an Exposure Draft: IASB/ED/2024/1 Business Combinations—Disclosures, Goodwill and Impairment on 14 March 2024.
The Exposure Draft (ED) contains proposed amendments to:
The ED is open for consultation for 120 days ending 15 July 2024.
In this project, the IASB is exploring whether companies can, at a reasonable cost, provide investors with more useful information about the business combinations those companies make.
The IASB’s proposals build on its preliminary views expressed in the Discussion Paper (DP) Business Combinations – Disclosures, Goodwill and Impairment published in March 2020 following the IASB’s post-implementation review of IFRS 3 Business Combinations. Details of the UKEB’s response to the DP can be found on our project webpage here. Having redeliberated its preliminary views, the IASB decided in December 2022 to add this project to its standard-setting programme.
The ED’s proposals include:
1. New disclosure objectives and additional disclosures requirements for some business combinations (in IFRS 3 Business Combinations)
2. Accounting for goodwill (in IAS 36 Impairment of Assets):
The proposed changes to IAS 36 would affect any entity that has cash-generating units containing goodwill.
The IASB will consider comment letters received during the consultation period and other feedback on the proposals in the ED and will then decide whether to issue the proposed amendments.
Outreach activity on this project has included a roundtable with users and preparers, one-to-one interviews with preparers, as well as consulting with our UKEB Advisory Groups on the proposals in the ED.
The UKEB published a Draft Comment Letter on 31 May 2024 – attached below and welcomed UK stakeholder comments until 1 July 2024.
The UKEB is broadly supportive of the package of proposed amendments to the disclosure requirements in IFRS 3 Business Combinations and the impairment test in IAS 36 Impairment of Assets. The proposed amendments would provide investors with better information about the post-acquisition performance of acquired entities.
The Draft Comment Letter sets out our observations and recommendations, reflecting our initial UKEB outreach and desk-based research. The UKEB is now considering all the feedback it has received and its Final Comment Letter will be published on this webpage and submitted to the IASB in due course.
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