IFRS 3 konsekvenser på svenska företag med avseende på förvärvad goodwill
The purpose of this master thesis was to examine how the corporations quoted on the A-list on the Stockholm Stock Exchange were affected by the introduction of IFRS 3 Business Combinations. Their opinion about the accounting rule and the acquired goodwill in particular was focused as well. The authors wanted to see if there were any changes in ROE, return on equity, after the introduction of the new accounting standard.Data for this study was collected through interviews, questionnaires and annual reports. Interviews were held with corporate accounting managers of Assa Abloy, WM-data, Electrolux, Ericsson and SCA. Questionnaires were sent by e-mail to 50 companies and were answered by 30 of them. The third method was to examine the annual reports from 18 companies to see if there were any changes in ROE. A two-sided hypothesis test was carried out for this purpose.The harmonization of international accounting rules was sympathized by the most of the companies in the study. The Swedish authority Redovisningsrådet had early adopted the International Accounting Standards as the starting point for the harmonization of the Swedishgenerally accepted accounting principles. The updating of the accounting rules was done smoothly, there were not many changes left to be done in the corporate accounting before the International Accounting Standards became effective in Sweden on January 1st 2005. One of the changes was that the amortization of goodwill from business combinations is no longer allowed.The companies did not experience the annual impairment test as a burden. On the other hand, the companies found it difficult to judge how much of the intangible value should be allocated as intangible asset and how much of the value could be seen as goodwill.The outcome of the study with two-sided hypothesis test was that the introduction of IFRS 3 accounting standard will increase the net profit and consequently the net profit margin. Assets turnover is stable while ROA increases. The debt/equity ratio decreases while the ROE increases.The IFRS 3 rule was considered to be unclear. The authors question how such an unclear rule would ever show true and fair view and comparability between companies. Further examination of IFRS 3 will be needed. A reliable comparison between companies is required.