Earlier this morning, Sage announced that CEO Paul Walker is to step down. According to Richard Holway : Sage is one of only two Holway Boring Award holders (the other is Capita). They are awarded for ‘boringly consistent earnings performance’.  More precisely no earnings reversals for at least 10 years. Sage hasn’t reported an earnings reversal since its 1989 IPO – or even longer if I had such records to hand. But it is ‘Boring’... 

An official announcement from the SEC states: The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Goldman, Sachs & Co. and one of its vice presidents for defrauding investors by misstating and omitting key facts about a financial product tied to subprime mortgages as the U.S. housing market was beginning to falter. It goes on to say: According to the SEC’s complaint, the deal closed on April 26, 2007, and Paulson & Co. paid... 

Finished writing an Accounting Observer report on the FASB’s recent amendments of revenue accounting for “multiple deliverable arrangements,” and got to actually spend time really reading the paper and other web content instead of just skimming it. If you’ve had any interest in the intersection of accounting standards and Congress (the location commonly referred to as “hell,” I …  Read More →

At an open meeting tomorrow morning , the SEC’s commissioners ” will consider whether to publish a statement regarding its continued support for a single-set of high-quality globally accepted accounting standards and its ongoing consideration of incorporating International Financial Reporting Standards into the financial reporting system for U.S. issuers.” You could take that one of three ways:     1. They’re getting... 

Plenty of good reasons abound, like digging out the driveway a little more, cleaning up the basement or working on the tax return. You know, stuff that’s gotta get done, but a movie would only put off the inevitable task a little longer. And there’s another reason: maybe because everybody loves the movie so much, it could only be a letdown if you actually invested the time to see it. Fortune’s Geoff Colvin comes up with a better... 

Next Wednesday, the New York Society of Security Analysts hosts its annual update on what’s new in financial reporting. Too busy? Let me remind you: Alcoa reported its fourth quarter earnings 2009 yesterday. More…  Read More →

Of course it’s not worthy of mainstream media – Tiger Woods’ travails rule – but there is weird stuff going on in the world of accounting standard setting, too. Next week will be the AICPA’s SEC/PCAOB Current Developments Conference in Washington DC, where swarms of accountants and auditors go every year to load up on continuing education credits – and to hang…  Read More →

It’s crunch time. This week, the House of Representatives will decide on a bill that will give the new systemic risk regulator the power to override the SEC’s judgment in its oversight of the Financial Accounting Standards Boards. It would set up a “council” of interested parties to exercise its judgment over the SEC’s. According to Jessica Holzer of Dow Jones Newswires , the American Bankers Association, the Commercial... 

There are so many things going on in the standard-setting arena, it makes your head spin. And your stomach as well. At last September’s Pittsburgh meeting, the G-20 “call[ed] on our international accounting bodies to redouble their efforts to achieve a single set of high quality, global accounting standards within the context of their independent standard setting process, and complete their convergence project by June 2011.”…  Read More →

… is stock compensation. And it’s about to become bigger, as “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg moved yesterday to restrict pay on managers at bailed-out banks and automakers. As Joe Nocera points out in the New York Times, retention bonuses are out; guaranteed bonuses are out. But pay for performance is going to be “in,” at least among those beneficiaries of government aid. It probably won’t stay isolated to... 

  By now it’s old news that SEC Chief Accountant Jim Kroeker mentioned that the Commission plans to review its semi-dormant roadmap for converging US accounting standards to international accounting standards. Yesterday, SEC chairman Mary Schapiro reinforced that statement at an IOSCO technical committee conference : she put accounting at the top of her list of three critical regulatory priorities, saying: ” The crisis has highlighted... 

September 14 was the deadline for comments on the IASB’s exposure draft in its “classification and measurements phase” of its three-part project for replacing its financial instruments standard, IAS 39. That document will receive a lot of attention at the Pittsburgh G-20 summit, I suspect. I certainly hope not. I was not a fan of the proposal, as you can see in my comment letter . In short, there was nothing in it that even…  Read More →

It’s come to this: Kanye West has disrespected the AAO Weblog. It’s true. See for yourself at this link. My, my. The level of public discourse these days… you’d think everything More…  Read More →

If the remarks of Fed Governor Elizabeth A. Duke are any indication, the answer is a flat “No.” At the outset of her remarks at Monday’s AICPA banks and savings institutions conference, she gave the traditional disclaimer that her comments reflected her views and do not necessarily reflect those of the Board of Governors or staff. Let’s hope they don’t. By the time you get to just the seventh and eighth sentences of... 

In response to the financial crisis, the IASB has speed-balled a proposal to rejigger the accounting for financial instruments. Issued in July, with the comment period ending today, the proposed accounting would give investors a new prism through they can view financial statements. Only two kinds of accounting would exist for financial instruments: amortized cost or fair value. But they can’t look at the same financial instruments both ways...