Asset Impairment In Myer Holdings: Procedures For Testing And Considerations (essay).

You are required to prepare a report for the CFO considering whether impairment of assets is an issue requiring address for the firm. The report should, with reference to AASB 136:

a) With reference to Myer outline what evidence is there that impairment testing of assets is necessary;

b) With reference to Myer outline the processes required to be addressed in determining any asset impairments that might be necessary

c) With reference to Myer outline the information needed in determining asset impairments

d) Evaluate the flexibility management has available in the determination of asset impairments .
 

Indicators of Asset Impairment

Myer Holdings Limited is a merchant store company in Australia. It operates approximately 60 retail stores located across Australia. Myer limited company deals with a range of products including menswear; women wear, children’s wear, electronics, cosmetics, and accessories among others.

Impairment of assets occurs on intangible assets which involve identifiable non-monetary assets that cannot be touched, physically measured or seen. For the financial year ended July 2018, Myer Holdings limited had net intangible assets of $359,000,000. Intangible assets include goodwill, Copyright, trademarks and trade secrets. Goodwill involves the difference between the price that the company paid and the book value of the assets. Some intangible assets are amortized, that gives a provision of depreciation on intangible assets while most of them are written off when the company realizes that the assets are impaired. Accounting standard AABS 136, deals with non-financing assets like goodwill, identifiable intangible assets, and property, plant and equipment. Non financing assets of a company are critical and they do affect not only the financial position of a firm but also the financial performance of an entity, thus the information relating to such need to be provided so that financial statements provide relevant and reliable financial information important to the potential investors and other users of the data.

Impairment testing involves the process of ascertaining whether the net book value of assets also called carrying amount outlined in the balance sheet of an organization needs to be maintained or reduced. "Empirical evidence on the application of CGUS in the context of goodwill impairment testing"  TM Carlin, KJI, and Finch, (2010). 

Change in the entity's environment such as political, technological, economic, market, and legal involved with Myer Holding Limited needs to ascertain whether it affected the carrying amount of the organization’s assets.

Change in sale volume of the organization- There has been noticed a drastic reduction change in the sale volume as shown by the income statement of the year 2018 and that of 2017. This is an evidence of asset impairment such as Goodwill of the organization to the customers could have reduced leading to sale volume reduction.

Decline in the value of assets- The provision done on assets for the year financial year ended in July 2018 is more than normal wear and wear, and this could be attributed by asset impairment in Mayer Holdings Limited.

Carrying amount of asset in Myer's Holdings Limited is more than that of market value as illustrated in the financial statements and the notes of the financial statements. This is a proper indicator of the asset impairment of the company

Procedure for Asset Impairment Testing

Production level in the company reduced since some of the assets has become obsolete. Thus need to test asset impairment in the entity as there is an indication of such cases.

The financial performance of Myer Holding Limited has reduced for the fiscal year ended July 2018. The previous year the company had a profit of 11million, but for the current financial year, it has a loss of 460million. This is a clear indicator of assets impairment.

Decline in the market share of the company- It has been noticed the reduction in market share of the organization. There is 2.28% drop in the market share. This is an evidence of asset impairment, "Australian Accounting Review, Better late than never, the timing of goodwill impairment testing in Australia" KJi (2013). 

AASB 136 accounting standards outline the procedures followed in assessing the organization’s asset impairment. This will ensure comprehensive testing and provision of information which is relevant and reliable. The following procedure should be followed;

Selection of asset to be tested-  Someone in charge with the fixed assets sorts the carrying amount of fixed assets by deducting the depreciation of assets provided in that year from the previous book value of the assets. He can use the Pareto principle of determining the depreciation rate, which is 20% for assets that firm 80% of the organization’s fixed assets.

Determination of the impairment Level- The discounted future expected Cash flows for each asset is determined, where the value is recorded in the fixed assets register adjusted to the given asset. A note is made in any case the carrying amount of an asset is more than the expected discounted cash flows of the asset. If such notice is done, the asset impairment is calculated by deducting the projected discounted cash flows of the asset from its carrying amount, and then the journal entry is created for the balance in the general ledger as adjusting entry, (Carlin and Finch, 2011).

Updating Accounting Records- The requested general entry is posted to the general ledger by the general ledger Accountant. The impairment is ensured that it is recorded to the fixed assets register for each indicated assets together with the reasons for assets impairment.

Revision of the Depreciation Calculation - The depreciation of the new reduced value of the impaired assets is calculated for the remaining useful life, "Empirical evidence on the application of CGUS in the context of goodwill impairment testing,“ TM Carlin, K J I, and N Finch, (2010)

Information Needed for Asset Impairment Testing

Cash flows and Assumptions

The cash flow information is needed in the calculation of assets impairment Myer Holdings limited as this will assist in the prediction of future cash flows of the organization. Discounted Cash flow is used fewer disposal costs to determine the fair value of the asset.

The asset value- To determine the carrying amount of the asset as the records in the balance sheet  

Income statement to evaluate the financial performance of the firm and check whether there is an increase or decrease in the sale volumes.

We should also have information concerning the environmental factors under which Myer Holdings Limited is operating; we need to know technological, market, economic, political and legal environments of the company.

The market rate of the interest - Increase in market interest rate with effect the asset's value in use and thus we need to know it to calculate the discounted Cash flows if an asset.

Management accounting Statements which will help to ascertain whether there is an increase in the production cost. Any adverse variance between the budgeted cost and the actual cost will help us to deduce the reason for asset impairment, “Impairment of Goodwill and Accounting Quality," PV Hulzen, L Alfonso, G Georgeakopoulos, (2011)

There is a need to know the assumptions applied in the determination of carrying amount of the asset as to investigate their credibility and relevance in determining the impairment loss of an asset, determination of impairment level,

Each director has the duty of skill, competence, and diligence to understand the information contained in the financial report of the organization and ascertain whether the information contained reflect the true and fair view of financial affairs of the organization. Directors and financial reports(INFO 183). Thus the audit committee and the management should understand the need and adequacy of assets impairment and the adequacy of the related closure of such information. The management should have adequate skills in matters about the assets impairment.

The management should have sufficient information about the asset impairment and can instruct both internal and external auditors and experts and to monitor them and review the performed work and report, "International Journal of …, Amortization versus Impairment of Goodwill and Accounting Quality" PV Hulzen, L Alfonso, G Georgeakopoulos… (2011)

Myer Holdings Limited is an established firm and has an appropriate review process including review of independent work, sufficient authority, experience, and expertise. This makes flexibility of management in determining the asset impairment easy. 

Historically, Myer Holdings limited has been known of instituting incentives and providing accountability to the financial report to come up with the quality report. The management is held to account for quality reports thus there is a need for them to be flexible to ensure that determine the net value of intangible assets and write off any impairment loss discovered. This will increase the credibility of financial information contained in the financial statements.

There has been experienced a change in the management for the resent year and every executive aimed at being innovative and coming up with quality reports that could be facilitated by proper testing of asset impairment.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there has been evidence of Assets impairment in Myer Holdings limited like a decrease in the, decrease in the value of the asset, increased market rate of interest affecting the expected cash flow of the assets among others.

The asset impairment testing method involves selecting the asset to be tested, updating accounting records and revising depreciation calculation.

Information needed includes the market interest rate, asset value, the assumption used among others and the management flexibility to the determination and Testing of asset impairment has been confirmed effectively. 

References

TM Carlin, N Finch, (2011) Pacific Accounting Review, Goodwill impairment testing under IFRS

J Guthrie, TT Pang (2013), Australian Accounting Review, Disclosure of Goodwill Impairment under AASB 136 from 2005–2010 Australia

K Ji (2013), Australian Accounting Review, Better late than never, the timing of goodwill impairment testing in Australia

TM Carlin, K Ji, N Finch, (2010) Empirical evidence on the application of CGUS in the context of goodwill impairment testing

TM Carlin, N Finch…, (2010), Asian Review of …FRS36 and post-transition compliance quality among Singapore firms

Z Li, PK Shroff, R Venkataraman, IX Zhang, (2011), Review of Accounting Studies, Causes and consequences of goodwill impairment losses

TM Carlin, N Finch, (2010), Evidence on the Use of Outlier Discount Rates in IFRS Goodwill Impairment Testing

PV Hulzen, L Alfonso, G Georgeakopoulos…(2011) - International Journal of …, Amortization Versus Impairment of Goodwill and Accounting Quality.