Part I: 2017 Financial Statements and Notes
WSP Global Inc is a Canadian organisation involved in providing management and consultancy services to the developed and natural environment. The organisation is listed on the stock exchange of Toronto having 36,000 staffs approximately in 500 offices serving in 40 nations (WSP, 2018).
Requirement a:
In accordance with “Page 80 of the annual report of WSP” in 2017, information about IFRS 16 Leases could be found. Since the organisation has contractual obligations as operating leases, material increase is bound to occur to both assets and liabilities upon the enforcement of IFRS 16.
As found from the annual report of the organisation, it leases several equipment and office premises under non-cancellable agreements of operating lease. The lease terms differ from six months to ten years and the maximum lease agreements could be renewed in accordance with the market rates, as could be observed from “Page 156 of the annual report of WSP”. In this case, WSP acts as the lessee. The lease payments under these agreements are depicted as follows:
WSP acts as the lessor as well, as it has mentioned about finance leases, in which the finance expenses are incurred to the earnings statement over the agreement period. This could be found from “Page 119 of the annual report of WSP”.
With the help of operating leases, WSP could cope up with the technological advancements in the industry by maintaining tight cash flows. Another advantage that is associated with operating lease is the significant tax advantages, in which payments could be subtracted as operating expenses during the payment period. All the above information could be accumulated easily from the annual report of WSP (WSP 2017 Annual Report, 2018).
In accordance with “Page 82 of the Annual Report of WSP” in 2017, the present value of the future operating lease payments is provided as $1,142.80. According to the rule of thumb calculation, the estimated increase in debt could be computed by multiplying operating lease expenses with 6 (Pwc.com, 2018). Therefore, the debt value would be increased by $6,856.80 ($1,142.80 x 6). On the other hand, the interest expense would increase to depict the conversion of operating leases in the form of debt. In order to balance this effect on the balance sheet statement, operating lease asset of $6,856.80 and operating lease liability of $6,856.80 would be reported in the balance sheet section under assets and liabilities sections respectively. This amount would be recorded in the form of off-balance sheet liability in contrast to the other liabilities, as mandated by IFRS 16.
Part II: Annual Report, Management Discussion and Analysis, Non-GAAP or Non-IFRS
As issued by IASB in 2014, IFRS 15 is introduced with the intent to substitute the past revenue recognition standards mentioned in IAS 18. WSP has evaluated the impact of adopting IFRS 15 on its financial statements and they have concluded that there would be no effect of this standard on the financial statements, as evident from “Page 80 of the Annual Report”. However, as WSB operates in the service sector, the potential effects of IFRS 15 could be listed down as follows:
- Modification in contracts due to changes in scope and prices
- Profits available for distribution
- Bonus plans and compensation
- Conformance to loan covenants (Tong, 2014)
1:
In order to assess MD&A of WSP, it has been compared with six general disclosure principles, which are enumerated as follows:
Through the eyes of management:
It is necessary for the Canadian business organisations to reveal information in its MD&A, which would enable the readers to foresee the management perspective. WSP has included relevant information in its MD&A about the details and procedures used in preparing its financial statements, as evident from “Page 54 of the Annual Report”.
Integration with the financial statements:
MD&A helps in supplementing the financial statements by including information regarding financial performance and position, while they are complemented by disclosing additional prospective and non-textual information. WSP has included supplementary information by providing financial highlights which could be found from “Page 5 of the Annual Report” and the financial statements are complemented by summary of significant accounting policies, which could be found from “Page 112 of the Annual Report”.
Completeness and materiality:
Completeness denotes the steps taken by the management in identifying, addressing and communicating quantitative as well as qualitative information crucial for users to assess the business, strategy, financial condition, performance, prospects and risks (Cpacanada.ca, 2018). Information is considered to be material, if omission of any information would influence the decision-making process of the investors. In terms of completeness, the management of WSP has included a section of corporate review in its MD&A containing quantitative and qualitative information, as laid out in “Page 54 of the Annual Report”. Moreover, it has disclosed all the performance metrics belonging to growth, profitability and liquidity, as could be seen from “Page 57 of the Annual Report”.
Forward-looking orientation:
The MD&A of any Canadian business organisation needs a brief description of the strategy of the management probable to affect future prospects materially. All the management strategies of WSP and its material impact on future prospects are disclosed in its notes to the financial statements or significant accounting policies.
Part III: Subsequent Financial Performance
Strategic perspective:
MD&A should include the strategy of the management in accomplishing short-term as well as long-term goals. According to the latest annual report of WSP, the short-term objectives are the targets set out for 2018 evident from “Page 9 of the Annual Report”. The long-term objective of the organisation is to be the leading player in all the operating geographical regions, as found in “Page 11 of the Annual Report”.
Useful:
For assuring that the information provided is useful, it needs to be relevant, comparable, timely, understandable and reliable (Lee, 2018). WSP has presented all the necessary information in a simple language, which could be understood easily by the readers. In addition, it has conformed to all the relevant IFRS standards for representing its financial information in order to ensure reliability. The financial information for the year 2016 has been attached in 2016 so that comparison could be made with the current year. Finally, the organisation publishes its annual report on 1st January, which is the reporting date for all the Canadian business entities.
2:
The two non-IFRS measures that are included in the 2017 annual report of WSP include the following:
Acquisition and integration costs:
These costs include profits made on disposal of equity investments in associates. The costs of acquisition and integration are financial performance items, which the organisation believes need to be excluded to gain an insight of the operational financial performance.
Adjusted net earnings:
Adjusted net earnings are defined as the earnings, which could be attributed to the shareholders. However, they do not consider acquisition and integration costs along with income tax effects, as the earnings are made in significant business combinations (Luo & Shalev, 2015).
These two measures could be found from “Page 100 of the Annual Report” and the main reason that these two non-IFRS measures are included so that the decision-making process of the investors could be enhanced further. Thus, providing such additional information would add further value to the financial statements.
A message that WSP has included in its MD&A in 2017 is depicted as follows:
(Source: WSP 2017 Annual Report, 2018, p. 61)
The above table is presented so that the users could gain information about the achievements of the targets made by the company and the targets that are over-achieved. The table format is chosen so that the attention of the users could be drawn easily, as presenting in text format might result the users to overlook such information. Therefore, by representing this table, WSP intends to show the efficiency of its management in achieving the set targets.
The above figure mainly helps in representing the stock performance of WSP in contrast to the stock performance of the index S&P/TSX on monthly basis. On 1st January 2017, the stock price of WSP stands at $45.78, which has increased to $73.56 in June 2018. A similar trend could be observed in the index as well and this denotes that the investors are prone to investing in various stocks listed in the index. The increase in stock price is due to the rise in dividend payments and increased earnings per share and such rise has motivated the shareholders to invest in the stocks of the organisation (Kim & Zhang, 2016).
It has been found that the beta of WSP is provided as 1.03. A beta above 1 is considered risky even though greater returns could be earned in future. In other words, it could be said that the stock of WSP is 3% more volatile than S&P/TSX. Hence, as per the beta value of the organisation, the stock is expected to underperform by 3% in down markets and by 3% in up markets (Wang, 2014).
After careful evaluation of the 2017 annual report of WSP, it could be stated that the organisation has not provided any signal, since it has managed to achieve all its set targets for 2017. In addition, it has over performed in certain areas and positive growth is expected to be continued in future.
WSP has prepared its financial statements in such a manner that all the necessary information could be obtained adequately regarding its financial position and performance. A brief explanation of the items included in the financial statements is provided in details and accordingly, it has helped the investors in undertaking investment decisions.
The annual report along with MD&A is more preferred instead of annual report only. This is because MD&A provides an overview of the operations of the past year and the way the organisation has performed financially (Filip, Labelle & Rousseau, 2015). In other words, it provides the opinions and perspectives of the management of WSP along with an estimation of future operations. Thus, by combining the performance of the present year through annual report and MD&A future operations, sound knowledge of the financial condition of WSP is obtained.
Based on the provided information, it could be said that the stock price of the organisation has increased with the passage of time and it has positive correlation with the index. Hence, buying the stock would be a sound option for the investors; however, they need to form a portfolio of stock, since greater risk is involved in this stock.
By evaluating the MD&A, certain financial indicators are evaluated, which are not considered as a part of IFRS. As all these indicators have shown positive signals, which are supplemented by positive financial growth, the decision-making process is enhanced.
References:
Cpacanada.ca. (2018). Retrieved 19 June 2018, from https://www.cpacanada.ca/en/business-and-accounting-resources/financial-and-non-financial-reporting/mdanda-and-other-financial-reporting/publications/mda-preparation-and-disclosure-summary-guidance
Filip, A., Labelle, R., & Rousseau, S. (2015). Legal regime and financial reporting quality. Contemporary Accounting Research, 32(1), 280-307.
Kim, J. B., & Zhang, L. (2016). Accounting conservatism and stock price crash risk: Firm?level evidence. Contemporary Accounting Research, 33(1), 412-441.
Lee, A. S. (2018). Exploring the History and Trends of Accounting in Canada and the United States.
Luo, J. R., & Shalev, R. (2015). MICHAEL (MINYE) TANG. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 42, 48-66.
Pwc.com. (2018). Retrieved 20 June 2018, from https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/transportation-logistics/pdf/leasing-brochure-global-research-study.pdf
Tong, T. L. (2014). A Review of IFRS 15 Revenue from Contracts with Customers.
Wang, C. (2014). Accounting standards harmonization and financial statement comparability: Evidence from transnational information transfer. Journal of Accounting Research, 52(4), 955-992.
WSP 2017 Annual Report. (2018). WSPglobal. Retrieved 19 June 2018, from https://www.wsp.com/en-GL/campaigns/ar-2017
WSP. (2018). Retrieved 19 June 2018, from https://www.wsp.com/en-CA
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