Fair Value é confuso?

O Iasb está estudando o termo "fair value" (valor justo). É o que informa o Financial Times. A seguir, o texto completo:

Concept of 'fair value' ignores stench of the real world.
By JENNIFER HUGHES
Financial Times - 14/2/2008 - Asia Ed1 - Page 16

What's in a name? Quite a lot when it comes to fair value accounting, it seems.

The International Accounting Standards Board has this week launched a confidential consultation on whether the rulemaker should drop the words "fair value" and instead use something more specific.

In a nutshell, fair value seeks to value assets and liabilities at their current value, rather than using the more traditional historic cost. Critics warn that the term implies there are willing buyers and sellers and can confuse investors when there is no trading and value is instead calculated using subjective "black box" models.

To many in the accounting world, fair value represents an attempt by ivory tower academics to shoehorn everything into a single neat methodology without regard for the messiness of the real world.

Anyone following the credit crunch will have heard about the struggles to accurately value illiquid instruments. This week AIG, the US insurance giant, announced almost Dollars 5bn of writedowns after it adjusted some of the assumptions it used to value certain securities linked to subprime loans.

Critics take the AIG example and ask just how reliable fair value is when simply changing the assumptions in a model can lead to such swings in value. Advocates claim that the current market value is more relevant to investors when making investment decisions. Leaving aside the trickiness of using historic cost on complex derivatives that have no initial cost, they say the question boils down to whether you'd rather trust management's potentially subjective view of the value, or an independent market price.

It is worth noting, too, that historic cost still allows for writedowns on impaired assets, so it is not unreasonable to assume at least a chunk of the current writedown woes would still be happening under the old basis of "lower of cost or market price".

Back to the IASB. The consultation is a quiet "field test" exercise among a select group of auditors, analysts and companies around the world about their interpretation of "fair value measurement". It is avoiding at all cost the wider debate on whether fair value should be applied in the first place.

Even with this limited scope, could the project defuse some of the current furore?

Part of the problem is that as fair value gets extended beyond assets with clear and liquid markets, what exactly constitutes market price is less clear. The US recently delayed plans to extend FAS 157, its fair value standard, beyond the realm of financial instruments after being warned that many had no idea how it would work in practice.

FAS 157 is based on a single definition - exit price, or the price at which you could sell the asset or liability. There is of course a buyers' view, or entry price, and in some cases the two can produce very different numbers. IFRS has elements of both.

When the IASB consulted on switching to a single US-style exit price interpretation back in 2006, the mere suggestion provoked an uproar. Which in turn suggests that responses to the current consultation will lean towards dropping the single term in favour of defining exactly what is meant.

Would a name change alter this debate?

On one level, it would remove critics' heartfelt complaints that it is implicitly hard to argue against something called "fair". It might also help investors and those outside the profession understand the concept.

But for the critics, I fear that which we call fair value by any other name will still stink as badly. There is a lot of mileage in this debate yet.

Cidade da Música

Um texto interessante do jornal O Globo analisa (ou tenta analisar) a Cidade da Música. A relação custo-benefício não está clara, conforme o texto enfatiza.

MP investigará os custos da Cidade da Música
O Globo - 14/2/2008 - 19
Luiz Ernesto Magalhães

O Ministério Público abre inquérito hoje para investigar os custos da construção da Cidade da Música Roberto Marinho, na Barra da Tijuca. Os promotores da Promotoria de Cidadania e Tutela Coletiva querem esclarecer como uma obra orçada pela prefeitura inicialmente em R$80 milhões já custa aos cofres públicos R$461,5 milhões (576% a mais) em construção, projetos e consultorias, como mostrou O GLOBO. Por sua vez, a oposição ao prefeito Cesar Maia na Câmara dos Vereadores se articula para instaurar uma CPI para investigar os gastos com o complexo.

— Queremos esclarecer com a prefeitura e o Tribunal de Contas do Município (TCM) como foram calculados os custos inicial e final do projeto — explicou o promotor Rogério Pacheco Alves.

A Secretaria municipal de Fazenda divulgou o edital de licitação com as regras para a concessão do espaço, marcada para 17 de março. A prefeitura fixou em apenas R$97 mil (0,02% do custo total da obra) o preço mínimo para transferir a Cidade da Música à iniciativa privada. O valor deve ser quitado numa única parcela, 25 meses após a concessionária tomar posse. Como fontes de receita a empresa terá, além das salas de concerto, três cinemas, lojas, café, restaurante e estacionamento com 738 vagas, cujas gestões podem ser terceirizadas. O valor mínimo equivale a R$323,33 por mês — quantia inferior ao preço mínimo cobrado pelo aluguel de uma quitinete na Barra (R$450).

O prefeito Cesar Maia diz que o valor fixado no edital tomou por base estudos de viabilidade econômica desenvolvidos por uma empresa de consultoria. O documento, porém, não foi divulgado. Cesar argumenta que os ganhos da prefeitura seriam indiretos, pois não terá que arcar com os custos de manutenção:

— O custo para a prefeitura seria de pelo menos R$12 milhões por ano. Não ter esse custo já é um pagamento de fato pela concessão — disse.

Os argumentos não convenceram o vereador Roberto Monteiro (PCdoB), que tenta reunir as 17 assinaturas necessárias para dar entrada amanhã com um pedido de CPI:

— A discussão sobre esses gastos tem que ser aprofundada. Não é possível enterrar R$460 milhões num projeto quando a cidade enfrenta sérios problemas com conservação e favelização.

Preços simbólicos também no Engenhão e no Riocentro

Esta não é a primeira vez que a prefeitura promove licitações com preços simbólicos. Em 2005, o Riocentro, que precisava sofrer adaptações para o Pan, foi transferido à GL Events, por 50 anos, por R$1,2 milhão. Na época, o argumento era que a prefeitura saiu ganhando por não ter que gastar R$69 milhões no local. Já o Estádio Olímpico João Havelange (Engenhão), que custou quase R$400 milhões, foi transferido por 20 anos para a Companhia Botafogo (que administra os negócios do clube) por R$36 mil mensais. A prefeitura também argumentou que a idéia era se desonerar dos custos da manutenção do complexo.

Segundo o edital de licitação, o candidato a explorar a Cidade da Música deverá comprovar experiência de três anos na execução ou administração de equipamentos culturais. Ao contrário do que a prefeitura vem divulgando, a cessão de espaço para a Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira (OSB), embora bastante provável, não é garantida no edital. Por questões legais, a prefeitura não poderia indicar uma orquestra para ocupar o local. As candidatas devem indicar a orquestra-residente, que terá de cumprir exigências. Entre elas, ter no mínimo 70 músicos e ter se apresentado pelo menos 50 vezes nos últimos sete anos. Outra exigência é ter um maestro com experiência internacional. No Rio, se enquadram nesta situação a própria OSB e a Orquestra Petrobras.

Em nota, a OSB informa estar avaliando os termos da licitação para estudar se participa da concorrência. Já a Orquestra Petrobras informou não ter planos de disputar a concorrência. Outra que se enquadra nas exigências é a Fundação Orquestra Sinfônica de São Paulo, que não tem interesse no espaço.

Capa e Mercado

A foto é de Marisa Miller, modelo norte-americana, 1,73 m, 50 kg, 29 anos e capa da Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue deste ano. São dois objetivos da foto de Marisa.

Em primeiro lugar, a foto da capa de Marisa Miller significa que o mercado acionário norte-americano terá um bom desempenho em 2008. Nos últimos 30 anos, toda vez que uma modelo norte-americana foi capa desta revista a SP 500 teve um ganho de 13,9%. Quando foi uma modelo de outro país, inclusive do Brasil (1978) o ganho da SP é de 7,2% em 11 anos.

A série histórica está abaixo:


O segundo motivo de colocar a Marisa neste blog é óbvio, não?

Governança Corporativa

A seguir uma linha do tempo da Governança corporativa

Corporate Governance (A Special Report): Timeline --- From Teddy Roosevelt to Enron: How corporate governance has evolved over 100 years
The Wall Street Journal -R2 - 14/01/2008

1908: President Theodore Roosevelt criticizes the courts for interpreting the Sherman Antitrust Act narrowly, and urges more federal supervision of corporations.

1919: Dodge v. Ford Motor Co. establishes the legal principle that a corporate board must act to maximize shareholder value.

1924: Barnes v. Andrews says establishing mismanagement isn't enough to recover damages: The plaintiff must also show a director's actions caused a company's loss.

1933: In the wake of the stock-market crash of 1929, Congress enacts the Securities Act of 1933, the first major federal legislation governing securities sales. The act requires companies to provide investors with significant information regarding securities for public sale in order to make informed decisions.

1934: The Securities Exchange Act creates the Securities and Exchange Commission to monitor the nation's securities markets and industry; Joseph Kennedy is first chairman.

1940: The SEC recommends that corporate boards establish audit committees elected by shareholders at annual meetings.

1942: The SEC's Shareholder Proposal Rule requires firms to put shareholder resolutions to a vote.

1964: A U.S. Supreme Court ruling, J.I. Case Co. v. Borak, allows private citizens to sue companies to ensure compliance with federal proxy-statement rules. The rules require companies to disclose all important facts about director elections and other issues when soliciting shareholders for their votes.

1972: General Motors Corp. becomes one of the first American companies to establish a nominating committee to determine candidates for the company's board.

1973: The Financial Accounting Standards Board is founded. An independent group, it now sets uniform standards for private-sector financial accounting that are recognized as authoritative by the SEC.

1974: The SEC mandates that companies disclose whether they have a board audit committee.

1985: In Smith v. Van Gorkom, the Delaware Supreme Court finds that directors of TransUnion Corp. approved a merger in minimal time and weren't entitled to the legal benefits of the business-judgment rule, which shields directors from liability if their actions were informed, made in good faith, and in the corporation's best interest. Boards have since implemented higher standards of deliberation.

1987: TIAA-CREF sponsors dissident shareholder resolution against a "poison pill" provision at International Paper's annual meeting. It lost but was a watershed event in shareholder activism.

1992: General Motors CEO Robert Stempel resigns under board and shareholder pressure, leading more boards to oust underperforming CEOs.

1994: GM adopts influential governance guidelines, clarifying the board's role along with directors' selection, authority and evaluation.

2001: Enron Corp.'s bankruptcy and allegations of accounting fraud, conflicts of interest and destruction of evidence create pressure for new ways to prevent and detect corporate financial misconduct. Accounting scandals at WorldCom Inc. and elsewhere follow in 2002.

2002: The Sarbanes-Oxley Act sets standards for the audit process and other governance and compliance measures.

2003: The SEC approves changes to New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq listing rules that require companies to adopt codes of conduct and make them publicly available, and to have key board committees composed solely of independent members.

2005: Shareholders lose a lawsuit against Walt Disney Co. involving a $140 severance package for Michael Ovitz, who served just 15 months as president. But the case shows investors are taking a tougher stance against directors.

2006: The SEC investigates more than 100 companies for potential abuses of employee stock options.

2007: Home Depot appoints David Batchelder to the company's board, one of a growing string of victories for institutional investors seeking to place directors on boards to facilitate policy changes.

2007: Gregory Reyes, former CEO of Brocade Communications Systems Inc., is convicted of fraud, filing false financial statements and other charges, in an options-backdating scandal.

-- Compiled by Suzanne Barlyn

O que significa o aumento de Estoque?

Quando uma empresa aumenta o volume de estoque isto pode significar duas coisas opostas. Por um lado, o aumento pode significar que a gestão da empresa está confiante no futuro e resolveu investir no ativo antes do aumento da demanda. O estoque anteciparia um aumento de receita. Por outro lado, o aumento pode significar que os clientes não estão satisfeitos com a empresa e o estoque representaria a baixa demanda. Como interpretar?

Observe que esta questão toca diretamente na questão da análise das demonstrações contábeis e sua dificuldade.

Os economistas têm usado a informação agregada de estoques para tentar entender a flutuação da economia. Pesquisas passadas já mostraram existir uma relação entre estoques e crescimento da economia. Por isto esta informação é analisada com bastante carinho na esperança de vislumbrar o comportamento da economia.

GM

GM anuncia prejuízo mas ressalta crescimento em emergentes
13/02/2008
Por Terry Kosdrosky
The Wall Street Journal, de Detroit

(...) Para o ano, a GM divulgou o maior prejuízo de sua história, US$ 38,7 bilhões, a maior parte por causa de uma despesa sem impacto de caixa de US$ 38,6 bilhões, para dar baixa contábil em créditos fiscais que não vai mais usar.(...)

A GM está oferecendo aos funcionários dois níveis de compensação para se aposentarem antecipadamente: US$ 45.000 para os da produção e US$ 62,500 para os especializados. Cerca de 46.000 dos 74.000 funcionários sindicalizados já têm 26 anos de serviço, requisito da empresa para se aposentar mais cedo. Aos restantes será oferecido entre US$ 70.000 e US$ 140.000, de acordo com o tempo de serviço.

O novo contrato da GM com o UAW permite que ela contrate novos funcionários a um salário mais baixo e com menos benefícios. A redução do custo trabalhista é vista como um fator essencial para a GM conseguir competir com montadoras estrangeiras que têm produção nos EUA mas não têm acordos com sindicatos, entre elas a Toyota e a Honda.

Valor justo e crise financeira

A crise financeira atual pode ser um teste para a contabilidade pelo valor justo. É o que afirma John Plender, colunista do Financial Times. A questão da dificuldade de avaliação, os atritos entre auditores e administração e a volatilidade dos lucros são lembrados.

Financial crisis presents a test for fair value accounting.
By JOHN PLENDER
Financial Times - 13/02/2008 - Asia Ed1 - Page 22

Is fair value accounting a blessing or a curse in a financial crisis? On the face of it, an approach whereby assets and liabilities are marked to market looks logical when the emphasis of the banking system has shifted from deposit taking and lending to providing credit via securities markets. IOUs can be easier to value than bank loans. And the resulting transparency should be helpful in facilitating transactions at times of heightened risk and low confidence.

That is precisely what is needed now, when markets in complex pieces of paper have seized up. For if assets can be priced realistically, trading can resume. Yet in practice, fair value accounting appears not to be delivering on its promise to help mitigate systemic risk. The problem arises over illiquid assets.

The US Financial Accounting Standards Board has introduced a "three bucket" taxonomy to categorise marks to market. Bucket number one is for assets that have observable market prices. Bucket number two is for less frequently traded securities that can be priced by reference to similar assets. Bucket three is for the dregs - assets with "unobservable inputs" where value is based on management assumptions. A great deal of recent credit market innovation is dumped here.

Because of the subjective nature of this last category, the scope for friction between management and auditors at the end of the year is great. The risk is that auditors, worried about their liability, will bludgeon management into adopting assumptions that are close to fire sale valuations. Yet if assets are marked down excessively, the solvency of the financial system could be eroded. Regulators are nonetheless egging on auditors, adding to the pro-cyclical impetus in an already extreme downturn.

A consequence is that earnings volatility is being increased substantially - witness the recent numbers from MBIA, the monoline insurer. Marking financial instruments to market threw up a pre-tax loss of Dollars 3.5bn. Yet MBIA expects to incur actual losses of only Dollars 200m of this, believing that the bulk of the loss will reverse over the life of the insured credit derivatives.

As Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics points out, bond insurance is not like a credit default swap contract, where the obligor must immediately compensate the covered party for the full principal amount of the loss. It merely requires the underwriter to guarantee timely interest payments and the eventual payment of principal on maturity, which may be years later.

Fair value, then, is swings and roundabout accounting. It is also remote from cash. And because it requires liabilities to be revalued as well as assets, a decline in the creditworthiness of a bank can, bizarrely, throw up profits.

It used not to be like this. In the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, the world's biggest banks would have been insolvent if their loan books had been valued realistically. But to stave off runs on banks by uninsured wholesale depositors in the protracted period needed to rebuild bank capital, the authorities allowed loans to remain at book value on bank balance sheets.

Provisioning against loans was progressive, permitting capital ratios to be maintained. The auditors played along with the fudge. They did the same in relation to property values in the British fringe banking crisis of the 1970s.

This policy of regulatory forbearance would theoretically be possible today. Illiquid assets that are now plopping into the accountants' third bucket could be kept on bank balance sheets at book value until maturity. But forbearance carries the risk of moral hazard.

After the Latin American debt crisis, the banks' depleted credit ratings and higher capital costs gave them a higher cost of funds relative to corporate clients. So the clients went direct to the markets for funds, cutting out the banking middleman.

As securitisation thus became a mainstream phenomenon, the banks had to take bigger risks if they were to grow as shareholders demanded, which sowed the seeds of the next property-related banking crisis.

So there is no perfect solution. Fair value is just another fudge.