AICPA Spotlights Latest Guidance on M&A Activity

The American Institute of CPAs has included the latest guidance from the Financial Accounting Standards Board on accounting for mergers and acquisitions in the newest edition of its book Accounting Trends & Techniques

The professional reference helps preparers, management accountants and auditors incorporate new and existing accounting and reporting guidance into financial statements, and helps investors analyze them.

“M&A activity in 2010 rose to levels we hadn’t seen in years and this trend has heightened the need for good tools to perform financial statement analysis,” said AICPA senior vice president for member competency and development Arleen Thomas in a statement.

Global M&A volume totaled $716.3 billion in the first quarter of 2011. It is expected to reach $3.04 trillion in 2011, the most activity in five years, according to a recent report by Thomson Reuters and Freeman Consulting Services. Accountants preparing financial statements for companies involved in these deals need to understand the requirements of SFAS No. 141R (FASB ASC 805), Business Combinations.

The standard recently introduced the acquisition method of accounting to achieve better comparability of the information about business combinations provided in financial reports. 

The book, now in its 64th annual edition, surveys 500 publicly traded companies and provides hundreds of illustrative examples from actual financial statements and annual reports from a wide range of SEC-registered companies including Google, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Ford and Target, among many others. It features illustrative disclosures set in the context of relevant reporting trends for the newest accounting standards which have gone into effect recently, including:

• SFAS No. 141R, Business Combinations (FASB ASC 805)
• SFAS No. 165, Subsequent Events (FASB ASC 855)
• SFAS No. 161, Disclosures about Derivative Instruments and Hedging Activities—an amendment of FASB Statement No. 133 (FASB ASC 815)
• SFAS No. 160, Noncontrolling Interests in Consolidated Financial Statements—an amendment of ARB No. 51 (FASB ASC 810)

Accounting Trends & Techniques costs $135.00 for AICPA members or $168.75 for non-members.

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