Category: News

Underpants Gnome Accounting of the Day: CapitaLand Ltd.

Sometimes when your profits need a little boost, the best thing to do is change an accounting policy, amiright?

CapitaLand Ltd., a property developer in Singapore has pulled the double-entry sleight of hand to get a big boost in their first quarter profits:

The company […] said net profit for the three months ended March 31 was 101.5 million Singapore dollars (US$82.1 million), up from a restated S$29.8 million a year earlier, and was “underpinned by higher development profits and portfolio gain.” The company’s year-earlier net profit before the revision was S$115.4 million.

Okay, “higher development profits and portfolio gain” sounds a little vague so let’s see what else is helping these numbers:

The large increase also reflects a change in comparable figures for the year earlier due to an accounting policy change at the start of this year.

The new policy means overseas projects and local projects on a deferred payment scheme have to be fully completed before they are recognized.

This will result in “income recognition that is lumpy and back-ended, thus creating more volatility in profit recognition even though the underlying projects’ cashflows have not changed,” CapitaLand said in a statement.

Investors will likely view the results with caution as a result, analysts say.

“As CapitaLand has mentioned, this new policy gives rise to lumpy earnings that are not very meaningful, especially since over 50% of CapitaLand’s earnings are from overseas,” CIMB analyst Donald Chua said, adding other developers with large overseas market exposure will also be affected.

CapitaLand Net Surges on Accounting Change [WSJ]

What Are the IASB and FASB Smoking?

[T]he tediously-reported proclamation of real convergence commitment has never been more than a smokescreen behind which the divergent interests of the Americans and the Europeans have knocked heads to the point of insensibility. (For which, recall the continued fudging of the SEC as to whether, if ever, that agency is even going to confirm a date certain on which to decide if to weigh in or not […].) Why no-one has called the question on this endless charade reflects the two-level fantasy in the dialog: the IASB and the FASB both pretend to believe in the desirability of fully-converged accounting standards, and the community of financial statement issuers and users pretend to believe them. [Re:Balance]

Public Accounting Exodus Watch 2011 (Poll)

Earlier I attempted to give a BDO senior manager some perspective on the how to deliver the news that he was jumping ship. Oddly enough, a friend of GC also sent us this message yesterday:

Since this ‘Tis the Season’ for attrition, it would be interesting to see a survey on who is looking for employment beyond their current employ.

So since we like to get a feel for such things, we’re putting on a little poll to see how many people are grabbing life preservers. Vote in the poll after the jump and discuss the particulars in the comments.

‘Single, Fat Accountant’ Struggling with Royal Couple Envy

Once again, we call attention to troubles from across the Pond, courtesy of AccountingWEB UK.

This time, the Single Fat Accountant is dealing with his uncontrollable jealousy over Kate and Willy’s upcoming nuptials:

I would like to publicly admit that I am jealous of the about to be married Royal couple. I do not want to know anything about them. I would prefer if there a total media blackout on the whole wedding. This to my big disappointment will not happen. As the time is getting nearer for the big day, the media has gone frenzy over the upcoming nuptials.

I know I should be a decent human being and wish them all the very best for the future like most of the very class conscious Britain. l cannot lie and pretend to join in the well wishes. I know this does makes me a mean and a horrible person.

Isn’t saying disparaging things about the Royal punishable by death in Britain? Or something? Well, single fat accountant it’s cool because most of us here in the States (accountants or not) don’t give a flying rat’s ass about Kate and Willy. Are they a good-looking couple? Sure. Do they enjoy wealth and social status that most people would kill for? Obviously. Will their marriage crash and burn in an ugly affair that results in another Royal Family scandal that will result tabloid fodder for years to come? We give it a 50/50 shot. The point is – why are you jealous? It doesn’t make any sense. Are you not capable of not clicking on their pictures or stories with their names in the headline? You’re wasting your precious utilization, friend. Get back to your spreadsheets.

Can you guys help cheer our friend up? Tell him everything is cool despite his lack of bloodline, wealth and hot fiancée.

How Are You Celebrating the End of Busy Season?

I’ll tell you how I’m celebrating – continuing my successful string of years not celebrating. Adrienne? She’s experimenting with home remedies for a stomach flu. But never mind our problems, you guys have somehow survived the January to April stretch without going nuts, assaulting someone and successfully avoiding awkward sexual advances (the latter two sometimes happening at the same time). That means you deserve to celebrate; whether or not that’s on company dime is another question.


Back in the KPMG days, I attended a pretty good throw-down at the Central Park Boathouse for the Financial Services group but that was in the spring of 2008 when the Bear Stearns embers were still hot and everyone who worked on the Citi still thought they worked for a great client (that’s what I was told, anyway). In 2009, end of busy season soirees were a much more muted with individual team celebrations because the world had basically just ended.

Last spring it sounded like it was more of the same. Nothing too out of control and individual teams were left to celebrate how they saw fit. Of course with a successful fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2011 looking good, firms may be ready to jump into the ostentatious end of busy season blowout parties once again. Maybe your partner(s) is/are taking you to Peter Luger’s; maybe it’s an intimate evening at the his/her home where some entertainment will be provided (hopefully from inside the firm). Or maybe it will just a drinks and awkwardly dancing the night away. We can’t possibly know since we don’t get invited to such things (at least officially), so discuss your plans, send us your invites or come up with your own ideas about how to best celebrate getting your life back.

If the Federal Government Were a Business, It Would Be WorldCom

Deroy Murdock seems to feel that the government should revisit its accounting practices since it appears government accounting is little more than legal fraud. Obviously he has absolutely no idea how accounting really works or he’d call the entire thing fraudulent (I mean, let’s be real, it is and everyone knows it), so let’s humor his opinion for a moment and consider government accounting.

Rep. John Shimkus (R., Ill.) grilled Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius about this before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health. He wondered how, in essence, the Obama administration could move $500 billion from its left pocket (Medicare) to its far-left pocket (Obamacare) and somehow finance $1 trillion worth of Medicare and Obamacare.

“Your law cuts $500 billion in Medicare,” Shimkus reminded Sebelius at a March 3 hearing. “Then you’re also using the same $500 billion to say you’re funding health-care [reform]. Your own actuary says you can’t do both.”

“So,” the eight-term congressman continued, “are you using it [the $500 billion] to save Medicare, or are you using it to fund health-care reform? Which one?”

Secretary Sebelius confessed: “Both.”

“So, you’re double-counting,” Shimkus replied.

“The same dollar can’t be used twice,” observed Health Subcommittee chairman Rep. Joe Pitts (R., Pa.). “This is the largest of the many budget gimmicks Democrats used to claim Obamacare would reduce the deficit.”

As any college business major knows, such double counting would earn a big, fat F on an accounting final. Far worse, this is illegal.

Obviously Joe Pitts is not at all familiar with how accounting works. The funny part, as Murdock points out, is that the SEC does not consider non-GAAP financial statements to be anything but misleading and inaccurate. It’s a good thing the federal government won’t be trying to file an IPO any time soon.

Peep Title 17, Part 210 of the Code of Federal Regulations:

Financial statements filed with the Commission which are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles will be presumed to be misleading or inaccurate.

Question: is there a particular reason “generally accepted accounting principles” is not capitalized? Because GAAP and gaap are two different things, one of which is a set of rules (not principles, no matter what James Kroeker may believe) while the other is basically a bunch of bullshit that we call “accounting” and agree is OK. Sort of like Don’t Ask Don’t Tell for financial statements.

You Can Thank Abraham Lincoln For Not Having to File Your Taxes Today

As everyone knows, today is usually tax day but thanks to Emancipation Day – a recognized public holiday in the District of Columbia, home of the IRS, since 2005 – we get an extra weekend to put off plugging our earnings into our 1040s.

The official holiday is April 16th but since Emancipation Day falls on a Saturday this year, the District gets Friday off. Buses run as usual but those heading to Tax Day events around DC (Federal Reserve Board protest, anyone?) can rest easy knowing the DC Parking Gestapo will not be out circling the streets for blood, er, expired meters.


Fact: slavery was legal in the U.S. from 1619 until 1865. By 1860, there were about four million slaves in the United States. On April 16, 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act, which freed more than 3,000 slaves in the District of Columbia. Slavery did not officially end in the United States until the end of the Civil War in 1865 when the 13th Amendment was ratified by 30 of the then 36 states. Bet you didn’t know that Mississippi only ratified the 13th amendment in 1995!

This holiday is especially near and dear to my locale, which boasts itself as the wealthiest majority African American county in the entire country. Though don’t believe everything you read in Ebony, PG is far from the luxurious country club the magazine painted it as in this 2006 article.

April 15th falls on a Sunday next year so you’ll also get an extra couple days in 2012 but Honest Abe doesn’t get credit for that, maybe Copernicus or whoever came up with the 365 + 1 every four years calendar year.

Happy Emancipation Day!

President Obama Puts 1099 Reporting Requirement Down for the Dirt Nap

Today, I was pleased to take another step to relieve unnecessary burdens on small businesses by signing H.R. 4 into law. Small business owners are the engine of our economy and because Democrats and Republicans worked together, we can ensure they spend their time and resources creating jobs and growing their business, not filling out more paperwork. I look forward to continuing to work with Congress to improve the tax credit policy in this legislation and I am eager to work with anyone with ideas about how we can make health care better or more affordable. [WH]

IASB Chairman: We Don’t Issue Low-Quality Accounting Standards

Rule makers concluded this week that “we all could benefit from a few more months to develop these standards, some of which really go to the core issues of many companies,” said Leslie Seidman, chairman of FASB, in a podcast issued Thursday. Sir David Tweedie, chairman of the IASB, said rule makers still intend to finish their convergence work by year’s end. The delay, he said in the podcast, will “enable us to check whether our conclusions will last the test of time. … We would never release a standard before it is ready and ultimately it must be a high-quality standard or you just can’t issue it.” [WSJ]

Oregon Accountant Indicted for Fatal Hit-and-Run

In aren’t-you-glad-this-isn’t-you news, an Oregon accounting director has been indicted on one count of criminally negligent homicide and one count of failure to perform the duties of a driver when a person is killed.


On January 26, Les Schwab Tire Center Director of Accounting Bret Lee Biedscheid, 38, allegedly hit Anthony Martin, 48, around 11 pm while Martin was crossing the street on his bicycle. The grand jury made their determination based on witness testimony and videotape evidence.

Two days after the incident, Biedscheid’s lawyer contacted police and surrendered the 2008 GMC pickup matching the description of the truck involved in the crash.

Bend, Oregon police later served search warrants on Biedscheid’s house and seized computers, cell phones, GPS devices and other items. “I feel like if it had been myself or anyone else, we would have already been arrested just on the evidence that they already had,” said the victim’s sister.

Biedscheid has not been arrested and is scheduled to be arranged Thursday morning.

Slow down out there when you’re heading home from ANO, kids.

Grand Jury Indicts Bend Man In Fatal Hit-And-Run [OPB News]

Paul Ryan Practically Threw a Fit During President Obama’s Speech

Mr. Ryan sat in a front-row seat in the George Washington University auditorium Wednesday while Mr. Obama unveiled his plan to constrain growing levels of federal debt. Mr. Ryan grew visibly annoyed during the speech, shaking his head in disgust. He feverishly took notes, and when Mr. Obama finished he stood up and bolted from the auditorium. The only person apparently running faster towards the exit tugged on Mr. Ryan’s sleeve near the doorway and reached out to shake his hand. “Hi, Mr. Chairman, Gene Sperling,” Mr. Obama’s director of the National Economic Council said to Mr. Ryan in what appeared to be a conciliatory gesture. “Oh, I thought you were a reporter,” Mr. Ryan said, explaining why he didn’t immediately turn around when his name was called. [WSJ]

LECG Throws in the Towel; Won’t Continue to Meet Nasdaq Listing Standards

DoD will officially be April 21, 2011 according to the company’s press release. Obviously whomever’s left will be celebrating the high holiday the night before.

LECG Corporation (NASDAQ: XPRT) announced today that it is terminating its listing on the Nasdaq Global Market as of the close of business on April 21, 2011. The company has previously received notice from Nasdaq that it has failed to maintain a minimum bid price of $1 per share. In light of its current financial condition, the company does not anticipate the minimum bid price for its common stock returning to a level of excess of $1 per share. In addition, in light of its current financial condition and certain publicly-disclosed recent asset sales, the company does not anticipate being able to continue to meet other Nasdaq listing standards in the future. Further, in light of recent resignations, a majority of the members of the Company’s board of directors do not qualify as independent. Following the termination of its listing on Nasdaq, the company intends to terminate its public reporting obligations under the Exchange Act as soon as possible.

[via Francine McKenna via ZH]

Earlier coverage of LECG Implosion:
LECG Fire Sale Continues; San Fran Forensic Accounting Group Joins FTI Consulting
WeiserMazars Moves into Chicago as Part of Acquisition of LECG Units
LECG Selling Off Practice Groups to FTI, Grant Thornton, WeiserMazars