Are listed property companies in Sweden ready for fair value accounting?  

Sammanfattning: The aim of this Masters thesis has been to find out if, and how, listed Swedish property companies have prepared themselves for the regulation passed by the European Parliament that requires all EU companies listed in a regulated market as well as companies preparing admission to trading, at the latest from 2005 onwards, to prepare their consolidated financial statements in accordance with a single set of accounting standards, International Accounting Standards (IAS). The thesis work has been concentrated on the analysis of the fair value model in IAS 40, investment property and how companies will measure the fair value of their property. The data and results for this study were collected through interviewing various actors in the real estate market in Sweden, the UK and the Netherlands on the use of fair value accounting for investment properties. Results from the study show that: • 57% of the listed Swedish property companies have started preparations to apply IAS by the year 2005 but it is not likely that any of the companies will change before 2005. • Currently there is significant divergence between some of the IAS and the RRs, which is causing some problems in the conversion process. However there is a general misconception that Swedish laws will need to be revised before the EU regulation can come into effect. • Changes in accounting principles will not affect the underlying cash flows and financial analysts will probably not take much notice of the new " IAS profits". • Unlike in the UK and the Netherlands, use of the fair value model will not affect the dividend payouts or remuneration policies in Sweden. But it will affect the accounting for long leasehold property investments in all of the three countries. • The fair value model was considered to have a lot of advantages over the cost model. • Listed Swedish property companies, unlike the English and Dutch companies, are not ready to adopt the use of the fair value model mainly due to the uncertainty surrounding the measurement of the fair values. • Measurement of the fair values will be based mainly on the discounted cash flow method. • In contrast to the companies studied in the UK and the Netherlands, Swedish property managers were distrustful of the exclusive use of external valuers.